Mary Ann in Autumn - Armistead Maupin

Mary Ann in Autumn is the eighth instalment of Maupin's magnificent Tales of the City, but only the second novel. The first was effectively a collection of his newspaper column and the next five stuck to that format. Then came Michael Tolliver Lives (2007), the first novel, which is also reviewed on this blog. Then comes Mary Ann in Autumn. The good/bad news is that there is a third novel, The Days of Anna Madrigal (2014) which we have to presume is the end.


The best news, though, is that Mary Ann is as good as anything earlier in the series, which means it is superlatively good. Maupin's great gift is that he tackles all the daily problems of San Francisco's gay and trans communities over a period of forty-plus years and he does it with love, compassion and a deep understanding of the human condition. A lesser artist would make it all about sex, perhaps with some exploration of the consequences of coming out. Maupin's characters are already out when we first meet them. We can take their sexual orientation or body dysmorphia as read.


Mary Ann, the great prude of 1978, returns to San Francisco having seen her husband and her life coach enjoying oral sex via Skype. The timing could have been better - she's also just found she has ovarian cancer. In coming to terms with the possibility of death, she in fact comes to terms with the endless possibilities of life. She is hosted by Michael and his husband Ben, supported by Dee Dee and her wife D'or, and inspired by the increasingly frail Anna Madrigal. Anna is now living with Michael's assistant Jake, who is transitioning to male. There is much awkwardness when he meets a Mormon Missionary who has gay leanings. There is also a secondary storyline involving Mary Ann's estranged daughter Shawna and a gangrenous beggar who turns out to have links to Mary Ann herself.


It is all brilliantly and (on the face of it) effortlessly done. The effortlessness is only skin deep. Maupin has spent a lifetime exploring these much-loved characters. He knows their every tic, hang-up and memory. He takes the same amount of care with characters who only appear (or reappear) in this novel. Even the worst of them has a soul and even the dogs have characters.


Superb.

Michael Tolliver Lives - Armistead Maupin

Michael 'Mouse' Tolliver, key character of the Tales of the City series, HIV positive and survivor of Guillain-Barre Syndrome is, to everyone's surprise, not least his own, pushing sixty and very much alive in the first decade of the Third Millennium.


I was a massive fan of Maupin's stories, mopping up the collections as they came out, and was surprised by this late return, especially in novel form. I need not have been. It is a triumph, the product of a master who has reached the pinnacle of his powers. One difference, of course, is that Michael is our narrator, omnipresent and the filter through which we view events. The other is the golden glow of acceptance. The misfits who pitched up at Mrs Madrigal's house in post Haight Ashbury San Francisco bonded by virtue of their outsider status. Thirty-five years later the world has moved on. Gay people and transsexuals are accepted without comment. Michael has married, for goodness sake, and the octogenarian Anna Madrigal now lives in an apartment with three other transsexuals for neighbours, including Jake, who is FTM.


Outside the Frisco enclave, however, things can be a little more awkward. Michael's mother is dying in Florida, which means Michael must visit his brother and sister-in-law who adhere to the militant wing of born again Christianity. Irwin and Lenore could easily be caricatures but Maupin is far too skilled and considerate to fall into that trap. Irwin and Lenore have their problems too - big ones it turns out.


All of life - and death - is here. All the surviving members of the Barbary Lane crowd are covered - Brian and Mary Anne and Mona, who moved to England and became an English country dyke. In its quiet, gentle and above all humane way Michael Tolliver Lives is something of a masterpiece. I'm heading back to the originals and I'm really annoyed that I can't find my copy of Maybe the Moon, which is my favourite Maupin.