Tales of the City

28 Barbary Lane: “Tales of the City” Books 1-3
Armistead Maupin
Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (December 6, 2016)
869 pages
Kindle edition $11.99, Amazon paperback $16.99

How it is that I never got around to reading Tales of the City until now, I have no idea. The up side is that I have had the delight of reading it and enjoying it for the first time here in late in 2018.

You now doubt know that the stories contained herein were originally published as a serial in The San Francisco Chronicle and later compiled into books. The present volume consists of the first three books in the series: Tales of the City (1978), More Tales of the City (1980), and Further Tales of the City (1982) .

The time is the mid-1970’s. Mary Ann Singleton has just arrived in San Francisco from the Midwest and rents a room at 28 Barbary Lane in a house owned by a mysterious Mrs. Madrigal. There she meets a variety of San Franciscans, both gay and straight. Being a 1970’s kind of guy and being a Bay Area kind of guy I was in my element.

This time around I only read the first book. It’s like ice cream: you can only take so much at a time. But I’m delighted to know that two more books await me.