Michael Tolliver Lives

by Armistead Maupin

Published 12 June 2007

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Soon to be a Netflix series starring Ellen Page and Laura Linney . . .

This is a novel about the act of growing older joyfully and the everyday miracles that somehow make that possible.
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Maupin revisits his all-too-human hero, Michael Tolliver, letting the 55-year-old gardener tell his story in his own voice.

Having survived the plague that took so many of his friends and lovers, Michael has learned to embrace the random pleasures of life, the tender alliances that sustain him in the hardest of times.

We follow the protagonist as he finds love with a younger man, attends to his dying fundamentalist mother in Florida, and finally reaffirms his allegiance to a wise octogenarian who was once his landlady.

And many familiar faces from the Tales of the City series make appearances along the way . . .


Tales of the City

by Armistead Maupin

Published 1 January 1900

NAMED AS ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 MOST INSPIRING NOVELS

Now a Netflix series starring Ellen Page and Laura Linney . . .

'It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.' Oscar Wilde

Mary Ann is twenty-five and arrives in San Francisco for an eight-day holiday.

But then her Mood Ring turns blue.

So obviously she decides to stay. It is the 1970s after all.

Fresh out of Cleveland, naive Mary Ann tumbles headlong into a brave new world of pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, spaced-out neighbours and outrageous parties. Finding a job as a secretary at an ad agency, Mary Ann wants to start her own life, away from her parents and with the flower-power freedom to make her own friends and her own decisions.

The saga that ensues introduces vignettes that are manic, romantic, tawdry and touching - unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin.


Mary Ann in Autumn

by Armistead Maupin

Published 2 November 2010

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Soon to be a Netflix series starring Ellen Page and Laura Linney . . .

Sassy, irreverent and curious, Maupin continues to explore the boundaries of the human experience with insight, compassion and mordant wit.
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Twenty years have passed since Mary Ann Singleton left her husband and child in San Francisco to pursue her dream of a television career in New York.

Now, a pair of personal calamities has driven her back to the city of her youth and into the arms of her oldest friend, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, a gay gardener happily ensconced with his much-younger husband.

Mary Ann finds temporary refuge in the couple's backyard cottage, where, at the unnerving age of fifty-seven, she licks her wounds and takes stock of her mistakes.

Soon, with the help of Facebook and a few old friends, she begins to re-engage with life, only to confront fresh terrors when her speckled past comes back to haunt her in a way she could never have imagined.