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Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin (view source)
Revision as of 10:19, 9 May 2018
, 10:19, 9 May 2018no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Michael Tolliver Lives
|author=Armistead Maupin
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=288
|publisher=Doubleday
|date=18 Jun June 2007
|isbn=978-0385612401
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0385612400</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0385612400|aznus=<amazonus>0060761350</amazonus>
}}
Michael Tolliver's getting on a bit these days. It's been almost twenty years since we saw him last. In the intervening years, he's cheated death by virus, gained some weight, a bulging medicine cabinet, a bigger sense of introspection, and, most importantly, a husband. Michael's thoughts are dominated by his relationship with Ben. Whatever's going on around him, his thoughts always return to his profound sense of gratitude for this mutually-fulfilling May to September - he's not quite December yet, after all - relationship. Michael has learned to love the daily routines of life, learned to savour them, treasure them. And for two hundred and something pages, this is what he does, taking the odd excursion to tend to his dying mother, rebuild a tentative relationship with his homophobic, god-fearing brother, and take care of Anna Madrigal, his erstwhile landlady and logical - not biological - mother.
When I heard Armistead Maupin was going to revisit Barbary Lane, I was suffused with a glow of the kind of benign nostalgia Michael Tolliver resonates throughout ''Michael Tolliver Lives''. Seldom have books been so loved as were all the volumes in his best-selling [[''Tales of the City]] '' series. Wildly silly, laugh out loud funny, irresistibly naughty, they caught the sense of the times for both those who were there and those who were not. They wormed their kindly way into the hearts of everyone who read them, gay, straight and even, perhaps especially, straight-laced alike.
''Michael Tolliver lives'' is slightly different to those that went before - Maupin insists it's not a belated continuation of the series, but rather the beginning of something new. And it is. It lacks the crazy pacing, the outrageous coincidences. It's a first person narration. It's slower, calmer, more still. Times have changed. Michael - and Maupin - are September boys now and ''Michael Tolliver Lives'' reflects this. I think it may disappoint some readers, but, as I hurtle towards those September days myself, it didn't disappoint me. It just felt... right. The belly laughs have turned to slightly rueful chuckles. Meandering off into the haze of one's thoughts before getting around to turning the page feels... right. I felt as though Michael and I had been moving in similar directions.
{{amazontext|amazon=0385612400}}
{{amazonUStext|amazon=0060761350}}
{{commenthead}}
|name=Magda
|verb=said
|comment= Another one of those things that I managed never to have heard of.
}}
{{comment
|name=Jill
|verb=replied
|comment= Blimey! The first books are absolutely delightful.
}}