March
HRONICL
Telling tales of Armistead Maupin
Biography is a loving, kind look at an old friend
Outlines: Armistead Maupin by Patrick Gale
Absolute Press, $9.95 trade paperback
Reviewed by Anthony Glassman
"Armistead Jones Maupin Jr. sprang upon an unsuspecting world at Doctors Hospital in Washington D.C."
That line starts the biography of Maupin, the author of the Tales of the City novels. It follows him through his school years, his tenure at a television station run by then-broadcaster Jesse Helms, his tour of duty in Vietnam, to his eventual move to San Francisco. The Bay Area became his home in 1970, and much of the book focuses on his life there.
Outlines: Armistead Maupin was written by Patrick Gale, a close friend of Maupin. Gale is the author of novels like Ease, Kansas in August, and Little Bits of Baby, gay favorites in his native England.
Gay icons are a dime a dozen; gay role models are a bit harder to come by. Maupin is one such role model, and Gale captures him brilliantly.
Even though he's a friend, the book is not one of those self-serving, self-aggrandizing odes to a celebrity that are called biographies, nor is it a scandalous, libelous tell-all meant to titillate an audience more than educate it. It is, in-
stead, a loving look at a man by one of his close friends.
The book is compiled from weeks of time spent hanging out and talking with the subject.
According to Gale, “We spent hours of the next ten days lolling on sofas gossiping about everything from why Armistead understood precisely why Monica
would have enjoyed sex with the president, to which gay novelists we were wary of, and why."
Gale covers everything from Maupin's birth to his fling with Rock Hudson. The reader even gets
an
early
glimpse of Tales
of the City when it was a newspaper column, before becoming a series of novels later translated to television.
Moreover, Gale does it all with love and humor, kindness and compassion. The reader gets the feel of a small child telling his parent about his new friend who lives down the street.
"I was asked to write a book that was as much about our friendship as it was about the man himself,
EAD
O
but I suspect there is enough evidence of our friendship in the stories I have winkled out and the tone in which I tell them," Gale writes.
All in all, it's an enjoyable read, but especially noteworthy for its very human look at a fairly extraordinary man. In talking about his basic training before leaving for Vietnam, Maupin says, "It was one of the few times in my adult life when I didn't feel any carnal desire whatsoever, when I thought I might not actually be gay. But it came roaring back after two weeks."
Maupin is not only a wonderful author and almost tireless activist, he is a very warm and loving friend. This shines through on every page with every anecdote in this biography.
"Occasionally we would fall silent to watch Todd, the ludicrously sexy gay gardener, getting muddy among the tree ferns, and occasionally we would remember that we were there to discuss Armistead's life, work and loves," Gale writes.
Gale also does what few have dared to do in the past: explain how to pronounce Armistead's last name.
"It is not pronounced with a French accent, so as to rhyme with Gaugin. Think Somerset Maugham. Better yet, imitate Vivien Leigh describing what Butterfly McQueen might do to the kitchen floor and you'll be nearer the mark."
Armistead Maupin