More Tales of the City [Paperback]

Armistead Maupin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 1998

The tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cozy nest for adventures far afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppelgÄnger in a desert whorehouse, and Michael Tolliver bumps into his favorite gynecologist in a Mexican bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all—without ever leaving home.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An extended love letter to a magical San Francisco." -- --New York Times Book Review

"Sparkling entertainments...lit by a glowing humanity that brings each character to vivid, poignant life." -- --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Armistead Maupin is the author of Maybe the Moon, The Night Listener, and the bestselling Tales of the City series. A new musical based on the first two Tales novels premiered at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater in the summer of 2011. Maupin lives in San Francisco with his husband, Christopher Turner.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060929383
• ISBN-13: 978-0060929381
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More tales, more tears, more love, more fun, November 6, 2001

By 

Megami (Darwin, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: More Tales of the City (Paperback)

Why is it that we admirers of the Tales of the City series enjoy it so much? Part of it is the fact that it is a combination of gossip and a good television series, all in a neat little package. Part of it is Maupin's great writing, which manages to capture the action and the spirit in a friendly, admiring style. Part of it is the motley crew of characters. But I think that the largest factor is jealousy - you read these stories and wish that you could live at Barbary Lane, and spend afternoons talking to Mrs. Madrigal, or tossing about campy bon mots with Michael.

This book is number two in a six part series about a house on Barbary Lane in San Francisco in the late 1970s and its inhabitants. Gay and straight, messed up and on the right track, Maupin's book is based on a regular (fictional) newspaper column that he wrote. And the book feels like you are getting regular episodes in the life of a group of people that you don't know personally, but you are interested in their lives anyway. You care about Mary Ann and her quest to the answer to her amnesiac lover's past. You want things to work out between Michael and the gynecologist Jon. You identify with Mona's surprise when she discovers her past during a chance visit to a desert whorehouse. You hope everything works out for DeDe and her twins-to-be. And as fantastic as these themes sound, they all become reasonable in Maupin's book. (Okay, so the parts concerning the amnesiac were a little bit far fetched, but nothing a reader can't cope with). I can almost guarantee that if you have not previously read the Tales of the City series before you read this book, you will be searching the shelves for the rest when you are finished.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Its Gets Better with the Second Book..., June 16, 2001

By 

Richard Kinne (Groton, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: More Tales of the City (Paperback)

With Book Two - More Tales of the City - the gloves start to come off! "Tales of the City" told us a story and introduced us to our characters. Now things really start to happen to them in "More Tales." They're put under pressure. They betray one another. They're there for one another. They find love. They lose love. They live. They die.

"More Tales" is slices of life at its near best. While, in some cases, this starts to give the book more of a "soap-opera" character (something that, to be fair, the series IS), because of the introduction and story in "Tales" you largely care about what will happen next.

Again, "More Tales" is written as social and historical commentary (whether Maupin meant it that way or not) and now the books have an even more interesting nostalgic twinge to them as you can compare your thoughts and your actions to events the characters are going through that you remember from your own life even if you've never been to San Francisco.

Maupin has a way with dialog and characters somehow. While there are times when his PLOT is contrived and fantastical, how his characters get through it always seems to be rather on the mark.

Finally, no review of this work is complete without mentioning the chapter "Letter to Mama." This one chapter - two pages - is worth the price of the entire book and I personally know two families whom that chapter has helped "pave the way." It is required reading for any child (of any age) who has yet to come out to their parents and is still trying to figure out how to do it, and if its worth it.

It is. Let Mouse show you why.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nancy Drew with a big, angry heart, April 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: More Tales of the City (Paperback)

Maupin's second novel retains all the virtues of the first _Tales of the City_, while strengthening the one weak link in the first book: plot. _More Tales of the City_ resolves the dramatic deficiencies of the first _Tales_ by featuring an interlocking set of mostly tongue-in-cheek mysteries. The sleuthing is mostly of the Nancy Drew variety, but the mysteries are well developed, and various clues and revelations are deftly spaced throughout the novel. Of course, there is a larger point: Many of these tales address the rise of religious fundamentalism (and the subsequent decline of public tolerance) during the late 1970s. Michael Tolliver--the only character not directly involved in dime-novel shenanigans--gets the novel's one truly affecting scene: his letter to Mom and Dad forms the thematic and emotional core of the book.