BOOKS

Maupin’s mojo returns The Autumnal Tree

FICTION
MARY ANN IN AUTUMN. By Armistead Maupin.
Doubleday. 287pp. $32.95.
Reviewer: ALFRED HICKLING

I
t’s now nearly 40 years since an unworldly young
secretary named Mary Ann Singleton scoured the
accommodation lists of the San Francisco Chronicle
and alighted on an article titled ‘‘Co-ed Baths –
welcome to the World’s Cleanest Orgy’’.
In some ways, the world’s cleanest orgy is precisely
what Armistead Maupin’s ensuing series of novels, Tales
of the City, became. This smartly subversive insider guide
to America’s most ahead-of-the-moral-curve community
gave many readers their first exposure to gay subculture,
while being sufficiently stylishly written to place the
author, in his own words, ‘‘up the front of the bookstore
with the straight white writers’’. The series was not
without its darker moments – Babycakes in 1984
contained arguably the first AIDS-related death in
popular fiction. Yet the broad appeal of the novels was
down to the genial observation of a hedonistic paradise
related in an approachable style that made depravity
seem curiously wholesome.
Mary Ann in Autumn takes its place as the eighth book
in the series – or possibly the seventh, if you discount the
largely disappointing Michael Tolliver Lives, which
appeared in 2007. At the time Maupin insisted that this
was not intended to be part of the sequence, even though
it offered a resume of what all the regular characters had
been doing for the past 18 years. To avoid any further
doubt, Mary Ann in Autumn advertises clearly on the
cover that it is ‘‘A Tales of the City novel’’, the author
having conceded that ‘‘whatever I have to offer comes
through these characters and I see no reason to abandon
them’’.
Given that Maupin is the kind of writer who doesn’t
have readers so much as devotees, the return to the Tales
format should come as welcome news. The quality of the
early stories arose from an addictive combination of
astute character-drawing and brisk, episodic
construction; yet Michael Tolliver Lives was an
uncharacteristically drab experiment in confessional,
first-person narrative that managed to turn one of the
most beloved characters in gay fiction into a self-pitying
bore.
Mary Ann in Autumn also has a downbeat cast – it’s a
novel about loss, nostalgia and ageing centred on the
heroine’s discovery that she has cancer. Yet the good
news is that, in terms of structure and that slightly
detached, uniquely avuncular, quite-possibly-stoned
tone of voice, Maupin seems to have got his mojo back.
Detractors cite Maupin’s fondness for a Desperate
Housewives-calibre of plot development as evidence of
lamentable contrivance: yet aficionados will salivate at
the re-emergence of a sinister character from the
shadows of the first book: Norman Neal Williams – now
didn’t he disappear over the side of a cliff?
If the autobiographical figure of Michael Tolliver can
sometimes seem to be a slightly self-indulgent
mouthpiece, the success of the novel is in no small part
due to its concentration on Mary Ann, who has come to
represent the darker, more interesting side of Maupin’s
imagination. Ever since her arrival from Cleveland at the
very start of the series, Mary Ann has functioned as the
straight, uptight, eminence grise who provides an
abrasive counterpoint to a community so affably laid-
back it is prepared to put up with anything, even people
like her. Earlier in the series she abandoned her best
friend Michael, who had recently been diagnosed HIV
positive, to pursue a television career on the east coast.
Now she returns to the city of her youth suffering a life-
threatening disease, seeking reconciliation and
forgiveness.
After abandoning your clothes,
The masking trinkets of green metaphors,
The rustling sheath of rusting thoughts,
Pure emotion
Now you show yourself to me
Armistead Maupin: at his rapturous best. Naked like Endymion:
She finds a San Francisco An eternity of virgin silence,
much altered from the sweet, A primordial recollective ocean,
pot-scented playground of the
Amid twinkling reflections
1970s: exultant at the election
of a black, Democratic
president yet despondent at the
Of infinite episodes of stars,
simultaneous ruling of In which Diana stares
Proposition 8, outlawing same-
sex marriages in the state of At her lunar shadow; feels fulfilled.
California: ‘‘ ‘Yes We Can’
followed by ‘No You Can’t’,’’
– Vidya S. Sharma
remarks Tolliver, whose own
union to a much younger man
has been legally solemnised no
fewer than three times. ‘‘I’m sure it’ll take eventually,’’
Mary Ann offers lamely.
Certain things never change, however, such as
Michael and Mary Ann’s transgendered landlady, Anna
Madrigal, who is still around well into her 90s,
‘‘plodding around the neighbourhood in kimono and
LITBITS
sneakers, blissfully fearless as the sole survivor of an air
WHAT’S ON
disaster’’. And there’s a new generation making its
mark, including Mary Ann’s estranged adopted Tomorrow: Canberra Times reviewer Dr Stephanie
daughter Shawna, a sex blogger who dates a circus Owen Reeder, author of Lost! A True Tale from the
clown as the basis of a predictable though nonetheless Bush, explores the highs and lows of retelling iconic
enjoyably Maupin-esque joke: ‘‘Call me old-fashioned, stories of lost children for a new generation of
but when I feel something red and round and hard, I readers. She will also talk about her new book due
don’t want it to be a nose.’’ out next year, Amazing Grace, which is based on the
Maupin’s writing is subject to a form of sentimentality story of Grace Bussell and the sinking of the SS
summed up by the gift of a Snuggie, a ‘‘ridiculous Georgette. Tuggeranong Homestead, 2pm.
blanket with arms, advertised on TV’’ that Michael buys Admission includes Devonshire tea. Bookings:
for Mary Ann as a partly ironic joke. It’s no surprise that Minders of Tuggeranong Homestead, 6231 4535.
the kitsch blanket later comes to signify in a barely
Tomorrow: An invitation to sample chai tea and a
credible plot twist. But even if Snuggies are not to your
new book, Handmade Living: a designer collective, the
taste, it’s hard not to be seduced by the wistful dignity
first publication by Handmade Canberra, featuring
with which Maupin’s core characters approach late
more than 70 projects with a handmade flavour, at
middle age: ‘‘It wouldn’t be the bridge or the pyramid or
Paperchain Bookstore, Manuka, 2.30pm. Inquiries:
the cable cars that would call her back to San Francisco;
6295 6723.
it would be the raw essence of the place, its DNA,
something that was everywhere but nowhere: a snippet Tuesday: The final Poetry at the Gods for 2010
of bay filigreed with trees, or a row of houses on a features Robyn Rowland and David Musgrave.
fogbound hillside, glowing like fairy lights buried in ANU Arts Centre, 8pm. Light meals available
angel hair.’’ Passages such as these reveal Maupin at his beforehand. Entry: $5. Bookings: 6248 5538.
rapturous best. Snuggle up.
❢ Literary Editor: Gia Metherell. Submissions should arrive
Guardian by noon on Wednesday to be considered for publication.
gia.metherell@canberratimes.com.au

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2010, THE CANBERRA TIMES − PANORAMA − 23