Description

The second novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin’s best-selling San Francisco saga.

‘Entertains, illuminates… A cultural touchstone that has enlarged our understanding of the varieties of human behavior’ Washington Post
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The tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cosy nest for adventures far afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppelganger in a desert whorehouse, and Michael Tolliver bumps into his favourite gynaecologist in a Mexican bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all-without ever leaving home.

Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads the eccentric tenants of Barbary Lane through heartbreak and triumph, through nail-biting terrors and gleeful coincidences in 1970s San Francisco. The result is a glittering and addictive comedy of manners that continues to beguile new generations of readers.

Publisher Review

I have read Maupin's first two books three times already and shall probably read them again before too long. I love them for very much the same qualities that make me love the novels of Dickens -- Christopher Isherwood A consummate entertainer... It is Maupin's Dickensian gift to be able to render love convincingly * Times Literary Supplement * Maupin is a richly gifted comic author * Observer * San Francisco is fortunate in having a chronicler as witty and likeable as Armistead Maupin * Independent * Like those of Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Armistead Maupin's novels have all appeared originally as serials... it is the strength of this approach, with its fantastic adventures and astonishingly contrived coincidences, that makes these novels charming and compelling * Literary Review *