Tales of the City is a series of six books, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle, written by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin. Tales of the City is also the title of the first book in that series.
The series is a vivid depiction of San Franciscan life from the mid-70s to the late 80s, spanning classes, sexual orientations, and (trans-)genders in an amusing prose. The lives and careers of the residents of 28 Barbary Lane are tracked, and a lot of humor is drawn from the unexpected crossing of plotlines in unexpected places (such as a lesbian summer camp). This rich tapestry of storytelling with a keen eye on the sexual climate of the era has often been compared to the writings of Honoré de Balzac.
Tales started as a serialized feature in a now-defunct San Francisco area newspaper, The Pacific Sun. The paper published five installments of the serial until it folded. In 1976, Maupin pitched a daily serial to the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle, and when they agreed, he drew from the same batch of characters.
Core characters
The series opens with the arrival of Mary Ann Singleton, a naive young woman from Cleveland, Ohio. She finds an apartment at 28 Barbary Lane, the domain of the eccentric marijuana-growing landlady Anna Madrigal and becomes friends with the other tenants of the building: the hippyish bisexual Mona Ramsey (who, though a central character, is not in all of the books), straight lothario Brian Hawkins (later Mary Ann's husband), the sinister and cagey roof tenant Norman Neal Williams, and Michael Tolliver, a sweet and personable gay man known to friends as Mouse (as in Mickey Mouse) who becomes central to the series. Beyond the house, lovers and friends guide Mary Ann through her San Franciscan adventures. Mona's ex-lover D'orothea Wilson, returns from a modelling assignment in New York, while Michael's lover and DeDe's gynecologist Jon Fielding graduates into the social circle. Edgar Halcyon, Mary Ann and Mona's boss, his socialite daughter DeDe Halcyon-Day and her scheming bisexual husband Beauchamp Day provide a glimpse into a more affluent Californian class, while Mrs. Madrigal's mother and owner of the Blue Moon Lodge brothel, Mother Mucca brings mystery and comic relief. In the last two books, Thack Sweeney becomes Michael's lover.
Realism in Tales
The Tales of the City series is lauded for being accurate in its portrait of a time and place in San Francisco's history. Because it was written so close to when it was published, it was able to incorporate many current events into the plot of the story. Maupin was also able to gauge reader response and modify the story accordingly. Maupin received a letter from a reader who pointed out that one of the character's names was an anagram. The anagram provided Maupin with one of the more memorable and surprising plot twists in the book. Maupin's books are also some of the first to deal with the AIDS epidemic.
The complete series
- Tales of the City (1978)
- More Tales of the City (1980)
- Further Tales of the City (1982)
- Babycakes (1984)
- Significant Others (1987)
- Sure of You (1989)
Sure of You is the only work to have been created solely as a book; the other books are comprised of writings that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle prior to novelization.
Further tales
The first three books have been made into television miniseries; the first Tales of the City originally aired in the US on PBS in January, 1994. Amid the controversy surrounding the homosexual themes, nudity, and illicit drug use in the miniseries, the program gave PBS its highest ratings ever for a dramatic program. In deference to local standards, PBS gave stations the option of showing an edited version in which male and female body parts were obscured by pixeling. The original six-part series was produced by Britain's Channel 4 Television Corporation with San Francisco's PBS station KQED and PBS's American Playhouse. Despite the ratings success of Tales of the City, PBS bowed to threats of federal funding cuts and announced it would not participate in the television production of the original miniseries' sequel, More Tales of the City.
Britain's Channel 4 eventually teamed up with American cable network Showtime to produce the sequel, More Tales of the City, which premiered in the US in June, 1998. The third installment of the series, Further Tales of the City was produced without Channel 4 and originally aired in the US on Showtime in May, 2001.
Despite the changes in production companies, four central characters were played by the same actors from the original three miniseries. Academy Award Nominee Laura Linney played Mary Ann Singleton, Academy Award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis played the matriarch, Mrs. Anna Madrigal, Barbara Garrick played DeDe Halcyon Day, and Billy Campbell (credited as "William Campbell") played Dr. Jon Philip Fielding. In addition, Thomas Gibson reprised his Tales role as Beauchamp Day in More Tales and Mary Kay Place, who had a cameo as Prue Giroux in Tales, played that role as a major character in Further Tales. In More Tales of the City, Paul Hopkins plays the role of Mouse, Whip Hubley plays Brian, and Nina Siemazko plays Mona. Hopkins and Hubley returned for Further Tales of the City.
In More Tales of the City, Mona discovers her true heritage when she winds up in a brothel in Nevada, run by Mother Mucca (Jackie Burroughs); on a cruise to Mexico with a lovelorn Michael, Mary Ann falls in love with Burke, a man without a past; DeDe decides to have her babies, much to Beauchamp's chagrin, and meets D'orothea; Beauchamp is later killed in a car crash; and Brian begins a rooftop dalliance with a mysterious woman. Events in Tales of the City, like the disappearance of Norman Neal Williams, are resolved, and Mrs. Madrigal reveals her secret to her tenants.
In Further Tales of the City, Mary Ann has landed a job at a local TV station and finds a story that might make her a reporter; Frannie mourns the apparent loss of her daughter DeDe and grandchildren in the tragedy at Jonestown, until she makes a shocking discovery; Michael dates several men, including a cop, a cowboy, and a movie star; and Prue falls in a love with a mysterious stranger living in a shack in Golden Gate Park. In the television series, Mother Mucca visits and introduces Mrs. Madrigal to a handsome, older man, a story line that does not exist in the books but was added for television.
The movie star in the Further Tales of the City is named Cage Tyler in the TV version, but in the book his name is consistently books written as ___ ____: the character is based on Rock Hudson, who was a friend and lover of Maupin's.
Plans for a two-hour version of the fourth "Tales" novel, Babycakes, were reported in 2003, and Maupin has completed a script. Showtime has not yet moved forward with a production.
Characters from the Tales of the City series have appeared in supporting roles in Maupin's subsequent novels Maybe The Moon and The Night Listener.
In a post on his web site, Maupin confirmed that his next novel will be Michael Tolliver Lives. The book focuses on Michael, now in his fifties; Maupin emphasized that, although readers may see Michael cross paths with some Tales characters, this would not be a "reunion" book. It is due to be published in late 2006.