A young secretary forsakes Cleveland for San Francisco, tumbling headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, and outrageous.
This is the second chronicle in the "Tales of the City" saga which follows the adventures of a naive young secretary who forsakes Cleveland for San Francisco and discovers a whole new world filled with a bizarre cast of characters.
The Days of Anna Madrigal, the suspenseful, comic, and touching ninth novel in Armistead Maupin's bestselling 'Tales of the City' series, follows one of modern literature's most unforgettable and enduring characters-Anna Madrigal, the legendary transgender landlady of 28 Barbary Lane-as she embarks on a road trip that will take her deep into her past.
Now ninety-two, and committed to the notion of 'leaving like a lady,' Mrs. Madrigal has seemingly found peace with her 'logical family' in San Francisco: her devoted young caretaker Jake Greenleaf; her former tenant Brian Hawkins and his daughter Shawna; and Michael Tolliver and Mary Ann Singleton, who have known and loved Anna for nearly four decades.
Some members of Anna's family are bound for the otherworldly landscape of Burning Man, the art community in Nevada's Black Rock Desert where 60,000 revelers gather to construct a city designed to last only one week. Anna herself has another destination in mind: a lonely stretch of road outside of Winnemucca where the 16-year-old boy she once was ran away from the whorehouse he called home. With Brian and his beat-up RV, she journeys into the dusty troubled heart of her Depression childhood to unearth a lifetime of secrets and dreams and attend to unfinished business she has long avoided.
An ordinary house-husband and his ambitious wife discover there's more to making a baby that meets the eye. Help arrives in the form of a British monarch, a gay neighbour, and an international ring of mail-order bridges.
In this funny, poignant and unflinchingly honest memoir, one of the world's best-loved storytellers explains how he evolved from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels inspired millions to claim their own lives. It is a journey that leads him from the racism and misogyny of mid-century North Carolina to a homoerotic Navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office of the White House. After losing his virginity to another man 'on the very spot where the first shots of the Civil War were fired', Maupin packs his earthly belongings into his Opel GT (including a portrait of a Confederate ancestor) and heads west to that strangest of strange lands: San Francisco in the early 1970's.
Modern fictionPaperback edition of the new novel in Maupin's acclaimed Tales Of The City series. Maupin revisits Michael Tolliver, the sweet-spirited Southerner, and one of the most beloved gay characters in fiction, 20 years after ending his groundbreaking saga of San Francisco life. This time, he lets the now 55 year old gardener tell his story in his own words. A novel about the art of growing older joyfully and the everyday miracles that somehow make that possible. 'Comedy in its most classic form... some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read.' Guardian
The Days of Anna Madrigal, the suspenseful, comic, and touching ninth novel in Armistead Maupin's bestselling "Tales of the City" series, follows one of modern literature's most unforgettable and enduring characters-Anna Madrigal, the legendary transgender landlady of 28 Barbary Lane-as she embarks on a road trip that will take her deep into her past.
Now ninety-two, and committed to the notion of "leaving like a lady," Mrs. Madrigal has seemingly found peace with her "logical family" in San Francisco: her devoted young caretaker Jake Greenleaf; her former tenant Brian Hawkins and his daughter Shawna; and Michael Tolliver and Mary Ann Singleton, who have known and loved Anna for nearly four decades.
Some members of Anna's family are bound for the otherworldly landscape of Burning Man, the art community in Nevada's Black Rock Desert where 60,000 revelers gather to construct a city designed to last only one week. Anna herself has another destination in mind: a lonely stretch of road outside of Winnemucca where the 16-year-old boy she once was ran away from the whorehouse he called home. With Brian and his beat-up RV, she journeys into the dusty troubled heart of her Depression childhood to unearth a lifetime of secrets and dreams and attend to unfinished business she has long avoided.
