Avec bonheur et mordant, Armistead Maupin nous fait tomber amoureux. Tour à tour d'une grande dame qui porte la décadence au rang d'art, d'une fille créative et sauvage, d'un jeune homme qui porte son cœur au bout de ses lèvres, d'une jeune femme prête à tout pour gravir son Mont d'espérance à elle... et de bien d'autres personnages.

For more than three decades Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed its own trail through popular culture...from a groundbreaking newspaper serial, to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales of the City is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that changed forever the way we live.

The calamity-prone residents of 28 Barbary Lane are at it again in this deliciously dark novel of romance and betrayal. While Anna Madrigal imprisons an anchorwoman in her basement, Michael Tolliver looks for love at the National Gay Rodeo, DeDe Halcyon Day and Mary Ann Singleton track a charismatic psychopath across Alaska, and society columnist Prue Giroux loses her heart to a derelict living in a San Francisco park.  

The tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cozy nest for adventures far afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppelgänger in a desert whorehouse, and Michael Tolliver bumps into his favorite gynecologist in a Mexican bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all - without ever leaving home. 

Among the cast of this groundbreaking saga are the lovelorn residents of 28 Barbary Lane: the bewildered but aspiring Mary Ann Singleton; the libidinous Brian Hawkins; Mona Ramsey, still in a'60s trance; Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, forever in bright-eyed pursuit of Mr. Right; and their marijuana-growing landlady, the indefatigable Mrs. Madrigal.

Mary Ann Singleton, 25 ans, fraichement débarquée de Cleveland, découvre avec joie les bonheurs et attitudes désinvoltes de San Francisco. Si Connie, sa copine superstar du lycée accepte de l'héberger, Mary Ann trouve rapidement son propre refuge au 28 Barbary Lane, où la délicieuse Mme Madrigal loge et fournit en herbes - et autres consolations - une petite bande de merveilleux locataires.

Suspenseful, comic, and profoundly moving, the latest novel in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series follows one of literature's most beloved and indelible characters as she embarks on a road trip that will take her deep into her complicated past. Now 92, and committed to the notion of "leaving like a lady", Mrs. Madrigal has seemingly found peace with her "logical family" in San Francisco: her devoted caretaker, Jake Greenleaf; her former tenant Brian Hawkins and his daughter, Shawna; and Michael Tolliver and Mary Ann Singleton, who have known Anna for nearly four decades.

Pour se remonter le moral, Mary Ann décide de devenir bénévole chez "SOS-Ecoute San Francisco". Là, Vincent lui apprend les rouages de la consolation par téléphone des âmes perdues, lui qui les écoute si bien de son unique oreille - il s'est coupé l'autre un jour de déprime. Anna Madrigal et Edgar Halcyon se découvrent et vivent leurs amours clandestines avec bonheur, tandis que Dede suspecte Beauchamp de la tromper.

Twenty years have passed since Mary Ann Singleton left her husband and child in San Francisco to pursue her dream of a career in New York. Now a pair of personal calamities has driven her back to the city of her youth and into the arms of her friend, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, a gardener happily ensconced with his much-younger husband. Mary Ann finds refuge in the couple's backyard cottage, where, at the unnerving age of 57, she licks her wounds and takes stock of her mistakes.

Nearly two decades after ending his groundbreaking Tales of the City saga of San Francisco life, Armistead Maupin revisits his all-too-human hero Michael Tolliver - the 55-year-old sweet-spirited gardener and survivor of the plague that took so many of his friends and lovers - for a single day at once mundane and extraordinary...and filled with the everyday miracles of living. 

The tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cozy nest for adventures far afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppelgänger in a desert whorehouse, and Michael Tolliver bumps into his favorite gynecologist in a Mexican bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all - without ever leaving home. 

In this long-awaited memoir, the beloved author of the best-selling Tales of the City series chronicles his odyssey from the old South to freewheeling San Francisco and his evolution from curious youth to groundbreaking writer and gay rights pioneer. Also included is an exclusive conversation between Maupin and best-selling author Neil Gaiman.

Dede se sent toujours plus délaissée par Beauchamp, mais elle trouve du réconfort dans la personne d'un jeune livreur asiatique. Mona, sans recourir aux services à domicile, trouve aussi que sa vie est triste, elle pète un plomb au boulot et elle perd son job. La morosité gagne également Mary Ann qui se sent dupée par Beauchamp.

"C'est étrange, mais on raconte que toute personne qui disparaît est aperçue à San Francisco." La Saison 1 s'ouvre sur cette citation d'Oscar Wilde, et rien ne saurait mieux décrire tout l'ambiguïté de la ville : la liberté a un coût, et elle ne dispense pas de la responsabilité de ses actes.

Norman enquête sur Mme Madrigal, tandis que Dede cherche de son côté un docteur discret qui puisse la sortir d'une situation... délicate qui inclut un indice asiatique en gestation. Les parents de Michael viennent eux aussi fouiner dans la vie de leur fils, et Mona de son côté décide de retrouver les parents cachés de son amante qui a réapparu comme par enchantement : D'orothea.

When an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife decide to start a family, they discover there's more to making a baby then meets the eye. Help arrives in the form of a grieving gay neighbor, a visiting monarch, and the dashing young lieutenant who defects from her yacht. Bittersweet and profoundly affecting, Babycakes was the first work of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS.

A fiercely ambitious TV talk show host finds she must choose between national stardom in New York and a husband and child in San Francisco. Caught in the middle is their longtime friend, a gay man whose own future is even more uncertain. Wistful and compassionate, yet subversively funny, Sure of You could only come from Armistead Maupin.

All of 31 inches tall, Cady is a true survivor in a town where, as she says, "you can die of encouragement". Her early starring role as a lovable elf in an immensely popular American film proved a major disappointment, since moviegoers never saw the face behind the stifling rubber suit she was required to wear. Now, after a decade of hollow promises from the Industry, she is reduced to performing at birthday parties and bat mitzvahs as she waits for the miracle that will finally make her a star.

Set against the 1970s San Fransisco skyline, Maupin's Tales of the City introduces the unconventional tenants of 28 Barbary Lane, the domain of the eccentric, marijuana-growing landlady Anna Madrigal. Mary Ann Singleton, a naive young woman newly arrived from Cleveland, Ohio, moves into an apartment there and soon becomes friends with other tenants of the building....

Tranquility reigns in the ancient redwood forest until a women-only music festival sets up camp downriver from an all-male retreat for the ruling class. Among those entangled in the ensuing mayhem are a lovesick nurseryman, a panic-stricken philanderer, and the world's most beautiful fat woman. Significant Others is Armistead Maupin's cunningly observed meditation on marriage, friendship, and sexual nostalgia.