Mary Ann in Autumn, by Armistead Maupin
Nov. 26th, 2010 12:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aJust finished Maupin's newest novel, Mary Ann in Autumn, which is his 8th Tales in the City book. He'd left the novels behind for almost two decades, before picking it up again in 2007 with Michael Tolliver Lives. I don't remember being particularly impressed with this one, but Mary Ann in Autumn was much better.
On the one hand, I'd not particularly thrilled to be reading these books about young characters that I enjoyed now moving into (and beyond) middle age. I'd prefer to remember them as forever young in a way that only fictional characters can be. Despite that, I can't help myself from reading the newest.
And Mary Ann in Autumn was worth it. It returns not just to the characters of Maupin's older stories, but also to the type of stories that Maupin was writing when the series was at its best, in its first few volumes. There's mystery here, very nicely setup and executed that goes hand-in-hand with the deeper character moments that exist throughout. There's also some really nice continuity.
By the time it was done, the plot had become one of my favorites of the series, and one that was very deftly written in a way that Maupin might not have been able to back when he was serializing these stories.
On the one hand, I'd not particularly thrilled to be reading these books about young characters that I enjoyed now moving into (and beyond) middle age. I'd prefer to remember them as forever young in a way that only fictional characters can be. Despite that, I can't help myself from reading the newest.
And Mary Ann in Autumn was worth it. It returns not just to the characters of Maupin's older stories, but also to the type of stories that Maupin was writing when the series was at its best, in its first few volumes. There's mystery here, very nicely setup and executed that goes hand-in-hand with the deeper character moments that exist throughout. There's also some really nice continuity.
By the time it was done, the plot had become one of my favorites of the series, and one that was very deftly written in a way that Maupin might not have been able to back when he was serializing these stories.