Sure of You (Tales of the City Series, V. 6) [Paperback]

Armistead Maupin (Author)

Book Description

Series: Tales of the City Series, V. 6 | Publication Date: January 7, 1994

A fiercely ambitious TV talk show host finds she must choose between national stardom in New York and a husband and child in San Francisco. Caught in the middle is their longtime friend, a gay man whose own future is even more uncertain. Wistful and compassionate, yet subversively funny, Sure of You could only come from Armistead Maupin.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tales of the City , the author's six-novel chronicle of gay, straight, single and married life in San Francisco, comes to a smart, wistful conclusion in this final installment. The series' large cult readership will already be familiar with the cast: the gay couple Thack and Michael, who must now live with the possibility of AIDS; Brian and Mary Ann, whose marriage crumbles under the strain of her growing celebrity; and Mona, who searches for happiness on a visit to Lesbos. Maupin began the stories as a serial in local newspapers, and each novel is as much a product of its moment as a Doonesbury strip. This one is no exception; it's packed with references to everything from Barbara Bush's weight to a specific, infamous segment of Late Night with David Letterman. What makes the books work are Maupin's gifts as both a reporter and an social ironist, and his unerring ability to capture the exact tone of smart urban conversation, whether the topic is politics, sex, friendship or the latest movies. Only Mary Ann, a ferociously ambitious morning-show hostess whose series goes "lower than Geraldo," is a caricature, albeit a wickedly funny one; the rest are full-blooded creations whose departures will be mourned.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This sixth, and final, volume of the Tales of the City series finds the now-former residents of 28 Barbary Lane dealing with the late '80s. Michael, after finally finding love with Thack, now must cope with being HIV-positive. Mary Ann's success as a talk-show host puts a fatal strain upon her marriage to Brian. Mona, with Mrs. Madrigal, vacations on the island of Lesbos searching for spiritual roots. Just as the characters have grown and matured over the course of the series, so, too, has Maupin's writing, producing a work that both serves as an appropriate ending for a terrific series and stands on its own as a novel. The publisher will repackage and re-issue the rest of the series upon the publication of this book. Recommended. Quality Paperback Book Club alternate. -- James E. Cook, Dayton & Montgomery Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (January 7, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060924845
• ISBN-13: 978-0060924843
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #345,742 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 The book that makes you hate Mary Ann Singleton, August 29, 2001

By 

Brian Devinney (Brooklyn) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sure of You (Tales of the City Series, V. 6) (Paperback)

Okay...I adored Mary Ann. I adored her for years. When I moved to NYC, I was given all six Tales of the City books as a present. I would read them and immediately recognize myself as sort of the little lost lamb. For five books, I loved her. Now I hate her. How could you make me hate her?!?!? But I am so glad you did...made me take another look at her and what she is supposed to be made of. However, I think the most enduring person is Anna Madrigal. Finally finding love in Greece (she predicted it in an earlier book) and Mona coming back after being gone for so long. Sigh....it's not the best of the bunch but the door is left opento pick up for a seventh installment...just to see if Mary Ann gets her comeuppance.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moving on, June 6, 2007

By 

Edward Aycock (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sure of You (Tales of the City Series, V. 6) (Paperback)

This is a toughie. This is Maupin's most beautifully written entry in the "Tales" series (owing partly to the fact that it was not originally written as a serial), but it's also the most disappointing. To this day, I'm still a bit confused as to why Maupin made Mary Ann turn out the way she did. Over the years, the more people I've talked to, the more I realized I wasn't alone. Some said Mary Ann was never quite the character we perceived her to be from the start but if that's so, why did so many feel so let down by her? Maybe Maupin's ideas of her and the reader's perception never matched from Book 1. Perhaps things would be different had Maupin not had Mary Ann be the first character introduced. We see San Francisco through her eyes, and we identify with her. What's that say about us when she ends up cold and unfeeling?

Time hasn't helped the case for the book either. Once the miniseries came out and Laura Linney became THE Mary Ann, it's even harder to read this final book. In the end, the fact that this book's still has people talking 18 years after it's release shows how much we grew to love these characters. This book is full of sadness, but also hope. Michael has AIDS and San Francisco is a different place than it was only a decade earlier, but we get glimmers of the new activism that rose out of the AIDS crisis, and would eventually help fuel the "gay 90s."

I am glad that Maupin will have a new book out soon that, while not officially a Tales book with its multi-character stories, will feature some of the old gang; it's been much too long. "Sure of You" may have been the end of the series but it's a classy, sad, depressing, troubling, frustrating and great finale.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a fairytale ending just painfully realistic, June 9, 2005

By 

Ged Mack (Brighton England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sure of You (Tales of the City Series, V. 6) (Paperback)

The residents of 28 Barbary Lane first came into my life in 1991 and they've remained firmly amongst my favourite literary characters of all time. Having read several reviews of "Sure of You" expressing feelings of disappointment and betrayal, I felt I had to chip in with my "twopenny" worth.
The evolution of all of the main characters (guided by Maupin's prodigiously talented hand) is achingly believable and, I for one think that, as an epilogue, "Sure of You" hits exactly the right notes. The many Mary Ann fans out there who felt particularly let down are maybe in need of a reality check. Look at what has happened to these people in the 12 tumultuous years from 1976 to 1988. How can we realistically expect the warm, cosy, fun-loving and uncomplicated world of the "20somethings" in "Tales" to be untouched by the passage of time as they approach middle age. Mary Ann, in spite of flashes of good, was always an essentially selfish character (very early on she dropped the flaky, but undeniably good-hearted, Connie like a hot potato once she had no more use for her and her apartment). She only really began to warm to Brian once she found out he was an ex-lawyer giving a very early indication that social standing meant a great deal to her. By book three she was well on her way up the greasy pole and woe be-tide anyone who crossed her. The lusty, heart on his sleeve, happy-go-lucky Brian seemed always pre-destined to be left behind in her wake. None of these observations are to her credit but nor do they make her a monster, just a believable human being of the "ambitious, go-getting type" - a type, incidentally, often highly prized by a Society where people who don't achieve materially seem to be routinely referred to as "losers." Mary Ann achieved fame and fortune and I should hazard a guess that those two things change people for the worse far more often than for the better.
I absolutely agree that the last installment made for uneasy reading, but to rate this excellently written book as a one star turkey just because you don't like the direction of the story and development of the characters seems a little absurd.
Well done Armistead Maupin for so effectively holding up a mirror to our collective faces. Let's not blame him if we don't like everything we see in it. In any case Michael, Mrs M and Brian are as likeable in the last book as they are in the first - Brian perhaps more so.
I only hope Michael Mouse made it (I suspect, however, that it was unlikely that he would). The Tales Anthology is not a fairy story with a happy ending (watch the Wizard of Oz if you want that). It's simply a brilliant series of books with some of the richest characters and best dialogue ever put into print.