Michael Tolliver Lives - Armistead Maupin

Now I was really looking forward to this book. I had greatly enjoyed The Tales of the City series written by Armistead Maupin about two decades ago. The earlier books were light, easy reads.

They described the lives of a disparate group of lodgers at the house of grand dame Anna Madrigal in San Francisco - all (including the landlady) have secrets and have come to the City by the bay to find themselves, and escape their past. The lives were bizarre, and the stories, episodic, wry, funny and punchy quickly drew you into the characters and made them seem like your friends. This book (overshadowed as it is by the after-effects and consequences of AIDS) is far more preachy, almost bitter and confronting. It centres on one of the characters from the earlier book - a survivor of the AIDS epidemic, and whereas in the first books Michael Tolliver conducts us through the bitter sweet emotions of falling in and out of love, romance and getting by financially, now Mr Maupin seems to want to flaunt the sexual behaviour in enormous detail, and without much humour. Even his relationship with his unforgiving mother almost has an element of revenge as she approaches her death. All in all a pity Armistead decided to expand a much loved series in this substandard way. What a pity! Rating 5/10