MOTHER'S DAY SPECIALS! SHOW ME MORE
Armistead Maupin was born in Washington, D.C. in 1944 but was brought up in Raleigh, North Carolina. A graduate of the University of North Carolina, he served as a naval officer in Vietnam before moving to California in 1971 as a reporter for the Associated Press. In 1976 he launched his daily newspaper serial, Tales of the City, in the San Francisco Chronicle. The first fiction to appear in an American daily for decades, Tales grew into an international sensation when compiled and rewritten as novels. Maupin's six-volume Tales of the City sequence - Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City, Babycakes, Significant Others and Sure of You - are now multi-million bestsellers published around the world. He is also the author of two other bestselling novels, Maybe the Moon and The Night Listener, which was recently made into a film starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette. He lives in San Francisco, California. Official Author Web Site- www.ArmisteadMaupin.com
The sixth and final volume in Maupin's engaging Tales of the City series Finds that old San Francisco gang of his locked in fortysomething angst - and even happiness. The 1980's are drawing to a close and so is the marriage of series regulars Mary Anne and Brian. Mary Anne hosts a locally popular morning TV show but is being wooed by her old lover Burke - now a powerful TV producer - to come to New York and go national. Brian, recovered from his AIDS scare in Significant Others (1987), runs a nursery with gay friend Michael, or Mouse, for whom AIDS is an omnipresent reality - he's tested HIV positive. When Mary Anne breaks the news that she's leaving San Francisco - and divorcing him - a distraught Brian moves in with Michael and his housemate, Thatch. In the meantime, their old lesbian buddy, Mona (daughter of former 28 Barbary Lane landlady, Anna Madrigal), finds happiness on the island of Lesbos - as does Anna herself, with an old Greek who looks like Cesar Romero. In the end, Brian comes to grips with Mary Anne's desertion, Michael weathers a Kaposi's sarcoma scare - and life simple goes on. Trendy to the nth, of course, but also sad and sweet and sometimes very funny - as in Maupin's viperish portrait of the menswear designer whose marriage of convenience hides his homosexuality from the world. (Kirkus Reviews)
