I rarely get emotional over a book purchase, but I did on Friday when I bought a copy of Armistead Maupin‘s Michael Tolliver Lives. When I got caught up in fundamentalist BS in my mid twenties, Tales of the City helped me come out a second time (I first came out in my late teens). First, I discovered him by accident in the library and would steal time to read his books. When I was in the process of leaving fundamentalism in the late 1990′s, I caught a re-run of the miniseries on Bravo. I then had to read the books properly and devoured them. I hate to sound maudlin about it, but those books saved my life. I continue to see those books as old friends, even to this day.
Some twenty odd years later is where Michael Tolliver Lives picks up where Sure of You left off. By Significant Others, Michael Tolliver was HIV positive and only thought he had a few years of life left. However, like the title of the new novel suggests, Mouse is alive and well. Having experienced almost every kind of gay relationship imaginable (boyfriends, tricks, bath house encounters, fuck buddies, tricks turned lovers, and domestic partners), a fifty-ish Michael finds a new soulmate in a thirty something man. Mouse has gone from being a landscape shop owner to a gardener, having sold the shop to Brian, now in his mid-sixties. Brian’s daughter’s now a wild sex blogger, and his ex-wife Mary Ann has moved on to become a Stepford wife on the other side of the country, interestingly in the town where the movies were filmed. The octogenarian Mrs. Madrigal is the godmother to a new generation of trannies including Jake, Tolliver’s trusty right hand man in the gardening business.
In the Tales of the City milieu, there’s no time like the present. These older versions of the characters readers (and viewers of the miniseries) have come to love are dealing with the quirks of living in the 21st century, such as cell phones, Googling, and the aftermath of 9/11. This novel also brings closure, as Michael Tolliver must deal with the impending death of not one, but two mother figures. His mother in Florida is dying in a convalescent home and summons him home one last time. He learns a dirty family secret which strangely enough provides a key in healing his relationship with his brother. The timing’s never good, as Anna Madrigal is close to leaving this world as well, bringing the children of Barbary Lane together for one last time.
Missing from The Night Listener and Maybe the Moon was Maupin’s wicked sense of humor, which is present throughout Michael Tolliver Lives. Even when things are bad, I was laughing my ass off about something, especially the interaction between Michael and his young husband.
There is room for Michael and his new husband Ben to tell their stories after this recent installment; however, this Tale of the City brings closure to four decade long story arc. Buy it, read, laugh and cry.
