Michael Tolliver Lives
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4.5 • 107 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Inspiration for the Netflix Limited Series, Tales of the City
The seventh novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin’s best-selling San Francisco saga.
Nearly two decades after ending his groundbreaking Tales of the City saga of San Francisco life, Armistead Maupin revisits his all-too-human hero Michael Tolliver—the fifty-five-year-old sweet-spirited gardener and survivor of the plague that took so many of his friends and lovers—for a single day at once mundane and extraordinary... and filled with the everyday miracles of living.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Maupin denies that this is a seventh volume of his beloved Tales of the City, but happily that's exactly what it is, with style and invention galore. When we left the residents of 28 Barbary Lane, it was 1989, and Michael "Mouse" Tolliver was coping with the supposed death sentence of HIV. Now, improved drug cocktails have given him a new life, while regular shots of testosterone and doses of Viagra allow him a rich and inventive sex life with a new boyfriend, Ben, "twenty-one years younger than I am an entire adult younger, if you must insist on looking at it that way." Number 28 Barbary Lane itself is no more, but its former tenants are doing well, for the most part, in diaspora. Michael's best friend, ladies' man Brian Hawkins, is back, and unprepared for his grown daughter, Shawna, a pansexual it-girl journalist la Michelle Tea, to leave for a New York career. Mrs. Madrigal, the transsexual landlady, is still radiant and mysterious at age 85. Maupin introduces a dazzling variety of real-life reference points, but the story belongs to Mouse, whose chartings of the transgressive, multigendered sex trends of San Francisco are every bit as lovable as Mouse's original wet jockey shorts contest in the very first Tales, back in 1978.
Customer Reviews
Like Coming Home
How I have missed these old friends? I don't know why it took me so long to read this after it was released, perhaps I needed to be in the right frame of mind. A recent trip to San Francisco reminded me of them, and I just finished reading Michael Tolliver lives on a beautiful early fall day in DC. If you loved the series, this is a must read, if for no other reason than to revisit old friends once again.
Don't Judge By Cover
Surely the publisher could have used the original artwork for the cover rather than the tattered, taped scan that this iBook has! It's abysmal to say the least. I wasn't aware that my money was going to shoddy work.
The story itself is good, although surprisingly and unexpectedly written in the first person. I understand that the books following went back to the third person narrative which I personally prefer. Still, this book should keep anyone entertained although one must be aware that it is more sexually graphic than the earlier books. It didn't bother me but it may offend some.
Good, easy read
Great characters, a fun read. Buy it, you'll enjoy every sentence.