Armistead Maupin

[+ Lucky]

You might think that Armistead Maupin is the title of his new novel, because his name on the cover is so much bigger than the title. Yet the book is actually titled Michel Tolliver Lives. Fans of Maupin's Tales of The City will be happy to hear of it.

 

I was not such a fan. It all seemed too cutesy for me what with Mrs. Madrigal and Barbary Lane and all these queers cute enough to be serialized in a straight newspaper. And I hate serials. I want to keep reading and not have to wait a week or a month to read more.

 

But I did read Maupins' The Night Listener, skipping the flop of a movie that it made. And I did like the book. So either I haven't changed and now Michael Tolliver and his cutesy friends are more acceptable, or maybe they always were and I am just now noticing it. But the new novel is cute, and likable, especially for us aging boomers who dream of being a daddy to a cute young buck of a guy who wants nothing other than to live till death do us part.

 

It's a quick, but delightful and touching read, especially as much of the ground covered patterns after my own. So if you are getting on a flight of three hours or so, take a look at it. The Title is Armistead Maupin...or at least appears to be!

 

It's even being sold at Costco for the budget minded.

[+ deej]

Looking forward to reading it.

 

You might enjoy visiting http://www.talesofthecity.com , and the discussion board there. Armistead participates (look for posts from "Madrigal").

 

I just love a guy who can tell a good story, in whatever format.

[+ Lucky]

RE:Forget Armistead Maupin...Edmund White, Anyone?

 

Well, clearly Armistead Maupin does not have much of a Hooville following, so I thought I would ask about Edmund White before I bought his new book, Chaos.

 

The overleaf states that the book contains a novella and three shorter stories...appparently he didn't have a whole book in him, which is okay, I like that he is honest about it. But what appeals to me is that the writing seems to be focus on a gay man getting older, which, of course, is a subject I find signicantly interesting lately. Anybody read Chaos?

[+ Lucky]

RE:Forget Edmund White Too!

 

Never mind! I did my own research:

Publishers Weekly

The title novella from novelist, memoirist and biographer White (Genet, etc.) turns on the guilt that gay novelist Jack, 66, feels about not visiting his dying friend Helene in Paris, and on Jack's obsession with Seth, 28, a charmless ex-Mormon sex bomb. Not much happens in "Chaos": financially strapped Jack and Seth (a "total top") meet on Craig's List and fall into a ritual where Jack pays Seth $120 for the pleasure of sucking Seth off. (White told a nearly identical story of obsession just last year in his much praised memoir My Lives, where the episode is titled "My Master.") Of the stories, only "Record Time" shines: it records what it was like to be 13 in small-town 1953, starved for culture, reduced to listening over and over to opera recordings on ancient 78s. The narrator recalls the excitement of going alone to a distant town for a screening of Cukor's famous Camille, taking the evening train home after a rain. Here the writing is thrilling, evocative, with a magic missing elsewhere in the collection. Despite that high point, even White's fans might feel entitled to sit this one out. (June)

 

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

[Bilbo]

RE:Forget Armistead Maupin...Edmund White, Anyone?

 

I don't think one can really say that Armistad doesn't have much of a following here. Merely that most of what we would want to say we have said already. He is timeless for me, not yesterday's news, but he is more of a private pleasure by now.

[buzz]

RE:Forget Edmund White Too!

 

As a longtime fan of both writers, I read both books and enjoyed them moderately. White's book seems to be little more than "exercises" not fully fleshed out stories. A few mournful riffs on gay men growing old. Maupin's book has a bit of that sense too, but after a while, some of the old "Tales of the City" magic begins to glow. What is missing are the zany, off-the-wall situations that Maupin used to conjure for his characters, but maybe the loss of zaniness is part of growing older.