In January 1983, Armistead Maupin made the rounds of gay publications with interviews in both Mandate and Torso magazines. He was at a unique point in his life and career: Further Tales of the City, the third book in the series had just been released. Maupin mentions that he had been named as “executive story editor” for an HBO series adapting the first two Tales… books. Unfortunately, this did not come to fruition, and it would be another 10 years before the first book was filmed as a 6-part miniseries for Channel 4 (UK) & PBS (US)
Just a few pages before the Torso feature is an article titled “Gays And The Plague.” The name AIDS had not yet been coined and the cause of the “gay cancer” was still unknown. The epidemic would have a devastating effect on Maupin, the gay community, and the fictional characters of Barbary Lane.
In addition to an interview with Maupin, Mandate also featured an excerpt of More Tales of the City:
“We come back to California from New York and reassure ourselves that it’s too noisy and too hot and too cold and too crowded and too dangerous but, in the long run, we sort of think… well, it could really be exciting.”
“I came out to my family during the course of the book. Michael’s letter to his parents was my letter to my parents.”
“I do not regard Tales of the City as a gay work. I regard it as a work written by a gay man that has gay characters in it and appeals to a lot of different kinds of people. I don’t want to preach to the choir.”
“When I quit the second book and said that I wasn’t going to do it anymore, that I was tired of it, I had a dream that Mrs. Madrigal came in and sat on the edge of the bed and sort of… shook my foot affectionately and said, “So, you’re leaving us, huh?”
“I regard myself as enormously political because I reach more straight people than most gay people. That’s what gives me the most satisfaction in doing what I do. I like changing people’s minds.”
The Torso article below refers to another Maupin serial that is often overlooked: Jackie Old – a fictional piece about Jacqueline Onassis at age 70. Unfortunately she did not live to see 70 and this series – initially published as a 5-part series in New West magazine – would not get an official release as 2014 Kindle novella. Even so, it is not included in his bibliographies.
“First of all, we do not all have good taste,” he smirks.
“All of us think we have good taste – which is where it gets dangerous.”
“By and large I’m a pretty lazy guy. I procrastinate terribly… I sympathize with Fran Liebowitz enormously on that – we both have equal agonies facing the time clock.”
When Harper & Row began publicity for Further Tales of the City, the San Francisco Chronicle photographed Armistead smooching with his boyfriend. “They handled it the same as they would any other author celebrating his latest book. Would that have happened five years ago?”
If I have a single message to get across in my writing it is that we all have to learn to know ourselves and have a sense of self pride in our own uniqueness as individuals…
that’s something which always has to come from within – no matter who you are.”
See Also:
Armistead Maupin in Blueboy Magazine (1980)
San Francisco: In Touch For Men (1979)
New York City: In Touch For Men (1979)
Gay Times #69 (1978)
Blueboy 1980: Gays of NYC
John Waters in Blueboy Magazine (1977)
Al Parker: In His Own Words
Revisiting Bette Midler’s Thighs & Whispers (1979)
Costello Presley & 80’s Gay Porn Guilty Pleasures
George Platt Lynes: In Touch Magazine (1982)
Brian Ferrari's Blog 