July 11: Another book review

I spent every moment of my free time yesterday with my nose in a book. Having already finished the Laurie Notaro book, and not quite ready to start on her next one, I picked up Armistead Maupin’s latest novel, Michael Tolliver Lives.

My friend Ed introduced me to the Tales of the City series about ten years ago. I loved it; I think I read all six books in a week’s time. Being set in San Francisco is probably what appealed to me most in the beginning, and then falling in love with the quirky, hilarious characters was just an unexpected surprise.

Ever since the series ended in the late 80s, fans have been asking Maupin when he’s going to write the next chapter. He’s always been pretty non-committal about continuing the series, and wrote a few other books in the meantime. I think a lot of people had probably given up on a seventh book. But surprise, surprise! Last month the newest volume was published in Michael Tolliver Lives.

This latest book has all the familiar faces of the original series. The biggest difference is that it’s written in the first-person voice of Michael Tolliver. Of course, everyone has aged nearly 20 years too, and much of this new book revolves around that.

I thought one of the funniest moments was a conversation Michael and Ben have with another gay couple they meet in Florida. The couple says that they were married by their pastor; Michael is surprised to hear that a church in ultra-conservative Orlando would be open to performing a commitment ceremony. One of the other guys says,

“We quit that congregation. The pastor started preaching about how all religions are the same and how they’re all just guidelines for goodness and the Buddhists are just as good as we are and shit like that. Well, call me old-fashioned, but when I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior I didn’t sign up for no Buddhism. I mean, can you imagine such a thing?”

Michael finds their narrow-mindedness appalling, but still tries to be kind:

“I think I see what you mean. If you join a spiritual discipline ... whatever it is ... you expect to be given the purest version of it.”

“Thank you,” said the shorter one. “I told that pastor we wanted all Jesus all the time or he could just keep his damn collection plate. We’d rather spend it on shoes.”

Later, the couple is telling them about their plans to move to the Gulf Coast.

“The beaches are fabulous. White sand as far as you can see. And white people. It’s the whitest place in the state. Call me old-fashioned, but I could use some of that right now.”

There was dumbfounded silence from the two of us, so the taller one looked at me earnestly and attempted an explanation. “Our Miata got broke into last week.”

I loved this book! It had the charm of the first three Tales, and that’s the highest praise of which I can think. If you have not yet read the Tales books, I encourage you to meet some of the most interesting characters ever created in fiction.

--Jen