Armistead Maupin wrote the nine novels within the Tales of the City series over a thirty-six years. The first four books were serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle before they were published, but the remaining five were published as novels immediately. As the title suggests, all of the novels are set in San Francisco and follow a group of characters who are living there.
The novels are entirely contemporary in that they were published very quickly after Maupin wrote them. This meant that he could incorporate current events, base his characters on real-life celebrities and also to a certain extent alter or adjust his characters and plots according to public response to them. Jim Jones Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson are all thought to be represented by characters in the books.
After publishing one book approximately every two years, Maupin did not write anything after the publication of Sure of You in 1989, waiting almost two decades before writing Michael Tolliver Lives in 2007. It is the first book in the series to be written in the first person. It was not as well-received as its predecessors because critics felt it was too obviously trying to recapture the formula of success that had been achieved with the previous books. In all, the final three books were never as appreciated by either critics or the public than the original series of books had been.
The title book in the series was adapted for television in 1993 by Britain's Channel Four. Maupin acted as executive producer on a mini-series shown on Netflix in 2019 which starred Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney, two of the stars of the original mini-series.
Although the preponderance of Maupin's work has been connected to Tales of the City, he is the author of two novels that were nothing to do with the series. Maybe The Moon is the story of a female Jewish dwarf, based on the life of Maupin's friend Tamara de Treaux who became famous after playing the role of E.T. on the hit Spielberg movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The Night Listener is a psychological thriller littered with autobiographical details.
Maupin is the recipient of a plethora of literary awards primarily in the gay and lesbian fiction genre.
