Real Words

I’ve mentioned twice before (here and here) that one of my annual projects for 2008 is to read all of the books written by Armistead Maupin. I started out with reading the Tales of the City series which I love in part because it’s set in San Francisco, the city that I call home. I have now completed the first four books of the series (still several more to go!) and remain in love with the books.

Here are some of the reasons why these books are great:

• They were written over a period of time in the 1970′s and 1980′s. As a result, there are all of these little references to daily things in San Francisco which are reflective of the city during the time period that the books were written. Maupin does a great job of offering little details that make the reader really experience what’s happening in the books so this is a really fun way to get a glimpse back into the cultural past.
• They transcend genres. I initially said that the first book reminded me of chick lit but not quite. That remains true. The books relate to several women’s lives in San Francisco and have a lot of the gossipy, relationship-oriented yet career-driven aspects that you’d expect from chick lit. However there are also many male characters in the book that we get to see from the heart so these aren’t girly books. Plus there’s a lot of mystery in here.
• The mystery. That’s a great point. Each book has some sort of mystery to be resolved. I’m impressed that Maupin can keep things interesting enough from book to book that the style of discovering the mystery never gets old.
• The characters grow. The reason that it’s fun to keep reading these books is because you learn more and more about each character as time goes on. And as time goes on, the characters change and grow accordingly. They feel like real people and that’s what great fiction is all about!

Anyone who likes fiction should give these books a read. And anyone who lives in San Francisco should love them!

Question of the Day: What’s another San Francisco author I should check out?

[Tags] san francisco, writing, reading, armistead, maupin, fiction, books [/Tags]