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Michael Tolliver Lives (P.S.) | 
| Author: Armistead Maupin
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $6.84
You Save: $7.11 (51%)
New (37) Used (17) from $5.73
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 72295
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0060761369
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060761363
ASIN: 0060761369
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: new paperback
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Product Description
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 fifty-five-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.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Loved it... July 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yes, Michael is different than he was back in the day but aren't we all? This book was sweet and funny and reminded me why I love Armistead Maupin so much. I hope that some of the people writing the critical reviews do not expect to be the same as they grow older. We all evolve--it is what is wonderful about life.
 Tolliver, sadly, Lives Maupin's Boring Life July 5, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I eagerly awaited the release of this latest addition to the Tales of the City series. I was sadly disappointed. Michael Tolliver Lives should have been entitled Michael Tolliver Lives Armistead Maupin's Boring Life. The transparency of this book simply being a recounting of Maupin's life in San Francisco, (his latest romance, his need for testosterone injections, etc) is a sad, obvious piece of writing. I find myself wondering if this book wasn't written simply as a response to a need for money. The fact that, unlike the original series, Tolliver Lives is written in the first person simply increases the confusion over whether of not we are hearing Tolliver's voice or Maupin's. To add insult, the book is a short, simple read written at a seventh grade level. In fact, I read over half of it while waiting for the the author to appear at his signing. My greatest disappointment was the lack of Maupin's trademark use of clever crossed paths, a style device that in the past had drawn comparison to Charles Dickens. No one would make that comparison here.
 More shocking, less clever June 21, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I fell in love so much with the Tales of the City series (which I recently discovered) that I preordered this book. I read it the same day that the book arrived pretty much in one sitting. It's definitely Maupin's voice coming through but something just seemed off in this book. Maybe it's the twenty years or so since he last visited them... maybe it's the modern world being reflected in his current book. Whatever the case may be I thought this book was shallow and smutty.
What I loved about the original Tales books is that he treated subjects that could so easily be smutty, with clever and witty insight. He left the reader laughing... not squirming. Frankly this book made me squirm. Maybe that was the objective. Maybe this is the way Maupin always wanted to write but couldn't or wouldn't. Maupin can certainly write however he wishes but this is not a book I would recommend to anyone but die hard Maupin fans... and even then I would recommend it with some hesitation.
 Michael Tolliver June 20, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I enjoy Armistead Maupin's writing, and this was no different an experience. I enjoyed reading it and thought it was a good book.
Alive and Kicking! June 3, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Michael Tolliver is (as the title rather clearly suggests) alive and kicking. Those who thought they would never see him again and imagined him succumbing to AIDS are in for a pleasant surprise. Michael copes perfectly well with the virus and he finds out that life still has a lot of surprises in stock for him.
Let's start with Ben a boyfriend for whom a partner some years senior is a major turn on. And to whom Michael is now officially married. He still has friends (though some live quite far away) and a thriving social life including... senior but by no means senile Anna Madrigal.
But the book is not only about care-free middle age and the joys of being gay in San Francisco. Maupin quite skilfully (we know he can do it, don't we?) introduces several more sombre and serious subjects, the most important of which is coping with the loss of the near and dear. He does it so cunningly that giving any details would be a terrible spoiler so just stop reading this and get the book!
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