There is a new(ish) Tales of the City book, & I’m trying to get caught up before I read it. I got a few pages into this one and realized that I’d already read it but no matter; it’s always a pleasure to spend a few bus rides with Mr. Armistead Maupin.
Now, all of the Tales books are a little on the soap opera-ish side and I do treasure that about them, but this was even a little more campy than most, what with Michael developing some kind of paralysis that reminded me of the unpronouncable fake illness that plagued Pamela on Dallas, amnesia, mysteriously appearing and disappearing relatives, and so on.
Actually, now that I think of it, that is all par for the course with these books (I just remembered the one where Jim Jones turns out to be alive and living in Golden Gate Park, and then gets murdered and buried in someone’s backyard), and I love it.
Another thing this book has going for it: the appearance of punk rock kids! Including some sort of punk rock hired assassin 14-year-old named Douchebag, who likes to stick bubble gum up her nose. Ah, the gritty realism.
These books rule. Now, in the spirit of maudlin twists of fate and paeans to a city from long ago, I am reading some Dickens.
