A decade ago, Armistead Maupin boldly declared that it was over. The Days of Anna Madrigal, the ninth in his illustrious queer novel cycle Tales of the City, was, he claimed, the last outing for the residents of 28 Barbary Lane. But ever since the first of the Tales was published in 1978, the lure of the “logical family” has proved irresistible. Maupin is back with a tenth instalment. How tuneful is this unexpected encore?
This iteration of the Tales is set in the early 1990s, and helmed by Anna Madrigal’s daughter Mona Roughton (previously Mona Ramsey). She has inherited Easley House in the Cotswolds – based on the real Stanway House in Gloucestershire – after the death of her gay husband Lord Teddy Roughton. Domineering Mona is a riff on the eccentric lord of the manor figure: a weed-smoking, fiery-haired diva who, by her own admission, “tends to bring a water cannon to a gunfight”. While Mona and her mother share the same kindness, self-possession and generosity of spirit, Mona is a much larger than life incarnation of these traits.
