As we begin the final push on Tales of the City, I should point out a few things. As the last third released, I was able to read them as they came out, a luxury I didn't have with the first 6. (The original miniseries on PBS released in 1993. I had the first 3 down by mid 1994, and finished what at the time was the end in 1995.) However, I've only ever read the last third once a piece, and only one was released since I started this blog.
Which brings us to Michael Tolliver Lives, Armistead Maupin's 2007 return to the folks of Barbary Lane. Michael has the odd presentation of being written in First Person, with Michael/Mouse narrating the book in 2007. Oddly, that decision drew a bunch of criticism at the time, as did his claim that it really wasn't part of Tales. The latter he retracted, but most reviews still kvetch about the narrative style. Of course, some of those same reviews also complain that a book narrated by an aging boomer (who technically isn't, but really is) queer who lives north of the Castro is virulently anti-W. Bush.
As we open on Michael, we find that he and Thack are no longer a couple, Thack having moved to Chicago sometime prior. Instead, thanks to the magic of the "dating apps", Michael instead met Ben on a site designed for folks to meet Daddies. We get sordid details of their relationship, from its open nature to getting married at the courthouse during that odd period when San Francisco recognized gay marriage even though no one else really did. (It's kind of odd that so much has changed in 15 years. I had forgotten much of what is contemporary in the book, and I LIVED through it.) Michael sold his half of Plant Parenthood to Brian, who's 61 and looking to retire and drive a Winnebago cross country, even as his daughter Shauna is becoming an internet celebrity. Mrs. Madrigal no longer lives on Barbary Lane, having had a stroke prior to the start. Instead, she lives in a complex with Michael's new business partner, Jake Greenleaf, a female to male transsexual living with two women going the other direction.
We find out Mona died of breast cancer off screen as well, and Mary Ann is seemingly off the radar, mostly retired in Connecticut. But, honestly, most of the regulars aren't the focus until towards the end, as much of this volume concerns Michael's relationship with his mother in Orlando.
Momma, it seems, is in the Gospel Palms nursing home, dying of emphysema. As such, Michael and Ben make a trip back to Orlando, where we get to see his brother and wife and his likely queer grandson. Momma tells Michael a bit about wanting to leave his father, which she did at one point for a 10 day stretch. Michale and his brother don't have much in common, since his brother has evidently embraced Jesus in a big way along with his wife and mother. (The sister-in-law runs a Christian puppet show.) The gays of Orlando aren't particularly as progressive as those in San Fran either, although Michael and Ben do wind up having a menage a trois with Momma's hair dresser, Patreece. Momma, like so many mothers of gay men, has a way of loving her son without really acknowledging who he's sleeping with. Momma does ask Michael to sign her living will, since she has no desire to be kept alive like Terry Schiavo. (In her defense, Momma has come a long way over the series, and honestly, even if it takes Michael time to realize it, she does love him and is proud of him and his husband, even if her framework is a lot different than his.)
Anyway, when Mrs. Madrigal has a heart attack, we get to see Mary Ann again, and we see the renewal of bonds that we thought had ended back in 1989. While she and Brian are not great, and her daughter is a bit off....
By far the thing that sticks with me very hard here is the idea of the logical family vs the biological family, something I also struggle with on occasion. (Boiled down, logical family are the friends who we choose as our own brothers and sisters vs whatever fate has declared to be our blood relatives.) It's obvious Michael and his family have very little in common, but his logical family more than makes up for it in terms of support.
I also find myself saddened by some of the things Michael encounters in the modern era; those that survived the plague now get to balance the possibility of AIDS taking them out, but also old age taking its toll on top of it. We hear bits and pieces of those who, convinced they were going to die, making bad financial decisions and now having to deal with them,; we hear of the dot com bubble and what it did to housing costs in the Bay and how even after the bubble popped, the rent kept on rising.
As much as some people hate this volume, I personally enjoy how it shows how things change over time and how we all progress with the calendar.
Friday, September 27, 2019
Monday, September 23, 2019
B. B. King in Yellow
I'm not quite sure how John Hornor Jacob's Southern Gods wound up in the raffle on my camping vacation, all I know is that I won it along with a couple other books. And since I've been waiting on stuff at the library, it provided something to read while I wait.
We open on 1951 Memphis, Tennessee, where Bull Ingram, former Marine who fought in Guadalcanal, is working as a collection agent for a loan shark. Bull, while not as shell shocked as some returnees, does seem to have a few reentry issues, and lives in a boarding house. One of the local radio station owners hires Bull to go find Early, who was last seen in Arkansas looking for Ramblin' John Hastur and a pirate radio station that plays his music. Early also was evidently passing on R&B and early rock records along with payola to get stuff played on Arkansas radio.
In the meantime, we have Sarah, who leaves Little Rock with her daughter Frannie, following her husband (also a WWII vet who's coping with return with alcohol and beating Sarah) hitting her too many times. She returns to Big House, in Gethsemane, where her mother is dying of Lupus. Sarah's father and uncle (both passed) have amassed a rather large occult book collection stored in the study. We find out much later on they were seeking their brother, who had consumption, who also evidently killed off half the family before vanishing.
The last member of this trio is Father Andrez, originally from Montenegro, now running a small parish in Arkansas. Father Andrez used to curate the Forbidden Library in the Vatican, where much of Sarah's occult library originated from.
(There's also Alice, housekeeper of Big House, caretaker of Sarah's mother, and mild hoodoo woman. Who honestly should have had a bigger part in this, since she's by far the most interesting character. On the other hand, she's the only believer at the beginning, so it's likely her horror would not have been quite as great as the gradual unflowering of the main three.)
As the book progresses, Bull finally meets Ramblin' John at a club outside Stuttgart following an incident at a small radio station where Ramblin' John's music literally wakes the dead DJ. At the club, something similar happens, except the living start killing each other and then reanimating. Bull follows the Pale Man to the Mississippi, where he collapses on a boat and winds up at Gethsemane.
By the very end, we know who made a deal with Hastur, have a very small idea of whom the Prodigium are, and have a very bleak understanding of humanity and its relations with several gods.
For those playing along at home, yes, there's a heck of a lot of Cthulhu mythos coming into play here, although there are gods not created by Lovecraft that also come out in the story.
One of the biggest problems with Lovecraft is racism. While Arkansas in 1951 (and Tennessee for that matter) wasn't exactly integrated, for lack of a better term, this only gets mentioned in passing in relation to a segregated pool. Also, given Ramblin' John is a blues man, much of his audience is African-American. (On one hand, most of the characters know John is a problem, but again...) I can't personally judge whether or not this is mildly racist, but I'm also in a place of privilege. Had Hastur been a mincing queen or any of the other bad guys been queer coded or limp wristed sissy, then I could better judge things like that. They aren't, so...
For those most part, it's a fun read. My biggest issue, besides the most interesting characters being mostly reduced to pop in and out roles, is that it feels quite a bit like much of the story got left behind in the editing room, like we're only seeing skeletons instead of a fully fleshed out monstrosity. But, it is still a fun take on Lovecraft in a more modern setting.
We open on 1951 Memphis, Tennessee, where Bull Ingram, former Marine who fought in Guadalcanal, is working as a collection agent for a loan shark. Bull, while not as shell shocked as some returnees, does seem to have a few reentry issues, and lives in a boarding house. One of the local radio station owners hires Bull to go find Early, who was last seen in Arkansas looking for Ramblin' John Hastur and a pirate radio station that plays his music. Early also was evidently passing on R&B and early rock records along with payola to get stuff played on Arkansas radio.
In the meantime, we have Sarah, who leaves Little Rock with her daughter Frannie, following her husband (also a WWII vet who's coping with return with alcohol and beating Sarah) hitting her too many times. She returns to Big House, in Gethsemane, where her mother is dying of Lupus. Sarah's father and uncle (both passed) have amassed a rather large occult book collection stored in the study. We find out much later on they were seeking their brother, who had consumption, who also evidently killed off half the family before vanishing.
The last member of this trio is Father Andrez, originally from Montenegro, now running a small parish in Arkansas. Father Andrez used to curate the Forbidden Library in the Vatican, where much of Sarah's occult library originated from.
(There's also Alice, housekeeper of Big House, caretaker of Sarah's mother, and mild hoodoo woman. Who honestly should have had a bigger part in this, since she's by far the most interesting character. On the other hand, she's the only believer at the beginning, so it's likely her horror would not have been quite as great as the gradual unflowering of the main three.)
As the book progresses, Bull finally meets Ramblin' John at a club outside Stuttgart following an incident at a small radio station where Ramblin' John's music literally wakes the dead DJ. At the club, something similar happens, except the living start killing each other and then reanimating. Bull follows the Pale Man to the Mississippi, where he collapses on a boat and winds up at Gethsemane.
By the very end, we know who made a deal with Hastur, have a very small idea of whom the Prodigium are, and have a very bleak understanding of humanity and its relations with several gods.
For those playing along at home, yes, there's a heck of a lot of Cthulhu mythos coming into play here, although there are gods not created by Lovecraft that also come out in the story.
One of the biggest problems with Lovecraft is racism. While Arkansas in 1951 (and Tennessee for that matter) wasn't exactly integrated, for lack of a better term, this only gets mentioned in passing in relation to a segregated pool. Also, given Ramblin' John is a blues man, much of his audience is African-American. (On one hand, most of the characters know John is a problem, but again...) I can't personally judge whether or not this is mildly racist, but I'm also in a place of privilege. Had Hastur been a mincing queen or any of the other bad guys been queer coded or limp wristed sissy, then I could better judge things like that. They aren't, so...
For those most part, it's a fun read. My biggest issue, besides the most interesting characters being mostly reduced to pop in and out roles, is that it feels quite a bit like much of the story got left behind in the editing room, like we're only seeing skeletons instead of a fully fleshed out monstrosity. But, it is still a fun take on Lovecraft in a more modern setting.
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Forbidden Planet
So, the library happened to have the second book in Lori Handeland's Shakespeare Undead series, Zombie Island, which while not quite the unexpected treat the original volume was, still wound up being really fun to read.
Unlike the original volume, this one more or less stays focused on one Shakespeare play, as Kate, feigning death, has been been packed into a coffin on a ship bound for the New World by her husband, thus robbing Shakespeare of a crypt to awaken her from. Said ship gets wrecked by a storm, and only Kate and her husband survive the wreck. Shakespeare, having been clued in by the ghost of Nounou as to what's going on, ends up giving chase in another ship, that also gets wrecked in a storm and lands him on the island.
The island is inhabited at the outset by zombies raised from several passing ships; Kate and her husband; Will; a sprite named Ariel; and a certain wizard named Prospero, who is using the sprite to wreck ships to create a zombie army to retake the kingdom he has lost. His first encounter with the husband doesn't end well, as he curses the husband to become as bestial on the outside as he is on the inside, thus creating a Caliban.
Anyway, the five characters slip in and out of the passages, as everyone but Ariel and Prospero start killing zombies, and everyone but Prospero has relationship issues. Prospero here has plenty of issues, but most of them are related to magic and insanity.
All's well that ends well, though, as Prospero's lineage gets revealed at the end as does the lineage of another monarch of the time, those who should be together wind up together, and we have a bridge to another book, should the series ever continue.
While more current pop culture references do crop up occasionally, this book largely stays close to the plot of The Tempest, minus some of the larger themes and the masque at the end of Act IV. It also wind points for giving Caliban a better ending than the play.
Makes me kind of sad there seem to not be any books after this.
Unlike the original volume, this one more or less stays focused on one Shakespeare play, as Kate, feigning death, has been been packed into a coffin on a ship bound for the New World by her husband, thus robbing Shakespeare of a crypt to awaken her from. Said ship gets wrecked by a storm, and only Kate and her husband survive the wreck. Shakespeare, having been clued in by the ghost of Nounou as to what's going on, ends up giving chase in another ship, that also gets wrecked in a storm and lands him on the island.
The island is inhabited at the outset by zombies raised from several passing ships; Kate and her husband; Will; a sprite named Ariel; and a certain wizard named Prospero, who is using the sprite to wreck ships to create a zombie army to retake the kingdom he has lost. His first encounter with the husband doesn't end well, as he curses the husband to become as bestial on the outside as he is on the inside, thus creating a Caliban.
Anyway, the five characters slip in and out of the passages, as everyone but Ariel and Prospero start killing zombies, and everyone but Prospero has relationship issues. Prospero here has plenty of issues, but most of them are related to magic and insanity.
All's well that ends well, though, as Prospero's lineage gets revealed at the end as does the lineage of another monarch of the time, those who should be together wind up together, and we have a bridge to another book, should the series ever continue.
While more current pop culture references do crop up occasionally, this book largely stays close to the plot of The Tempest, minus some of the larger themes and the masque at the end of Act IV. It also wind points for giving Caliban a better ending than the play.
Makes me kind of sad there seem to not be any books after this.
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Thanksgiving ghost story
This past week, before I left on vacation, I grabbed the first book I could find on the shelf on my way out the door. In this case, it wound up being the Young Adult classic, Crash Course, by Nicole Davidson.
The set up is fairly standard, 8 high schoolers go out into the woods of for an SAT prep course over the extended Thanksgiving break at Deep Creek Lake with just a teacher keeping track of them. We have Kelly, who's going mainly because Thanksgiving has been awkward since her mother left; Paula, who's boyfriend has already gotten an appointment to the Air Force Academy most of the way across the US from Maryland; Isabel, a new student who's along to make friends; Angel, the goth girl who goes out of her way to be strange an unusual; Jeff, the wrestler who has a crush on Kelly; Chris, the football player trying to get into UCLA who also has anger issues; Nathan, the guy from the wrong side of the tracks who plays foil most of the book; and Brian, Paula's boyfriend. Watching over everyone is Mr. Porter, an unpopular teacher who no one knows why he's doing this.
We focus mainly on Kelly throughout the book, with occasional passages covering another character briefly. (Although to be honest, the prologue lets out more information than we should have, as astute readers will likely figure out half the mystery early on.) Essentially, Deep Creek Lake is cold and has an underground creek that feeds the lake in the middle. Legends tell of young Susquehanna lovers who returned to the lake after finding their tribe slaughtered, and asking Gweemush, the underworld guardian what to do. Needless to say, his answer was to join him, so they drowned themselves.A story that Isabel tells around the fire the first night. The next morning, before dawn, a scream awakens everyone, and we run out to find several characters outside the cabin who shouldn't be, and Paula claiming Brian had been in a boat in the lake with a stranger who pushed him in to the lake.
With no bus coming back until Sunday, and no sign of Brian or his body, Mr. Porter sets off to get help. He never returns. The seven folks left start becoming more and more at odds, as everyone secrets come out. Nathan gets stabbed, but survives, even though he's mostly unconscious.
Eventually, Kelly pieces everything together and like a young Miss Marple, brings all the truth of the weekend to light.
While there are some fairly major plot holes, and a premise that seems largely unlikely in the modern age (one supervisor? no way to contact the outside in case of emergency?), it does provide an amusing distraction that holds up several years after publication.
She actually wrote a sequel a few years later, but I don't remember the name of it, nor did I particularly like it. But that's neither here nor there.
The set up is fairly standard, 8 high schoolers go out into the woods of for an SAT prep course over the extended Thanksgiving break at Deep Creek Lake with just a teacher keeping track of them. We have Kelly, who's going mainly because Thanksgiving has been awkward since her mother left; Paula, who's boyfriend has already gotten an appointment to the Air Force Academy most of the way across the US from Maryland; Isabel, a new student who's along to make friends; Angel, the goth girl who goes out of her way to be strange an unusual; Jeff, the wrestler who has a crush on Kelly; Chris, the football player trying to get into UCLA who also has anger issues; Nathan, the guy from the wrong side of the tracks who plays foil most of the book; and Brian, Paula's boyfriend. Watching over everyone is Mr. Porter, an unpopular teacher who no one knows why he's doing this.
We focus mainly on Kelly throughout the book, with occasional passages covering another character briefly. (Although to be honest, the prologue lets out more information than we should have, as astute readers will likely figure out half the mystery early on.) Essentially, Deep Creek Lake is cold and has an underground creek that feeds the lake in the middle. Legends tell of young Susquehanna lovers who returned to the lake after finding their tribe slaughtered, and asking Gweemush, the underworld guardian what to do. Needless to say, his answer was to join him, so they drowned themselves.A story that Isabel tells around the fire the first night. The next morning, before dawn, a scream awakens everyone, and we run out to find several characters outside the cabin who shouldn't be, and Paula claiming Brian had been in a boat in the lake with a stranger who pushed him in to the lake.
With no bus coming back until Sunday, and no sign of Brian or his body, Mr. Porter sets off to get help. He never returns. The seven folks left start becoming more and more at odds, as everyone secrets come out. Nathan gets stabbed, but survives, even though he's mostly unconscious.
Eventually, Kelly pieces everything together and like a young Miss Marple, brings all the truth of the weekend to light.
While there are some fairly major plot holes, and a premise that seems largely unlikely in the modern age (one supervisor? no way to contact the outside in case of emergency?), it does provide an amusing distraction that holds up several years after publication.
She actually wrote a sequel a few years later, but I don't remember the name of it, nor did I particularly like it. But that's neither here nor there.
Saturday, September 7, 2019
Every ending is a new beginning
Sure of You, which until the late 00's was the end of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, remains a painful book to read.
We're in 1988 San Francisco, with Michael and Thack now living together at the north end of the Castro, and Mary Ann and Brian still in their luxury condo atop the Summit, while Mrs. Madrigal still runs her house on Barbary Lane.
As we open, Michael and Brian are partners in ownership of Plant Parenthood, while Mary Ann has a morning show that's part Oprah and part Springer. Mrs. Madrigal is getting ready to go to Lesbos with her daughter Mona for a month or so.
Burke Andrew, last seen running from the cannibal Episcopals in book two, is back in town, offering Mary Ann a syndicated show based in New York.
What follows is the end of Brian and Mary Ann, mixed with Michael's fear about what his 600 T-cells mean in the face of something on his leg, and a few interludes on the beaches of Lesbos.
The problem is that we never really see what has become of Brian and Mary Ann, since their ending is almost bloodless, even as they hurt each other. We see Michael trying to play peacemaker, and Thack becoming more militant as the dying continues. (Seriously, he builds a trellis with hopes of getting pink roses to make a triangle shape on it.) We see Bill Rivera again, last seen in the bushes with Father Paddy at the end of book three.
We also get something similar to ________ ________ back in book three, as we meet the Rands, he a fashion designer, she an admin at the rehab clinic he went through. Rand, who raises money for AIDS with Liz Taylor, but professes his heterosexual love for his wife everywhere he can, is also sleeping with every man who will say yes. That friction between personal and public life really lies like a shark under the waters of the plot, as we discuss the end of Arch Gidde, who died suddenly of "Liver Cancer".
I'm happy we as a society have seemingly gone well beyond this "Hide the faggots in the closet" mentality, but here's a striking reminder of how we swept the dying under a rug and pretended they didn't exist. Something that many of us missed due to age or being dead.
I still cry at the end, even knowing how it all comes out. It hurts. It's not the howling pain that consumed book four, but more the pain and anger of those who have been denied any kind of dignity or acknowledgement of who they are or their personhood.
We're in 1988 San Francisco, with Michael and Thack now living together at the north end of the Castro, and Mary Ann and Brian still in their luxury condo atop the Summit, while Mrs. Madrigal still runs her house on Barbary Lane.
As we open, Michael and Brian are partners in ownership of Plant Parenthood, while Mary Ann has a morning show that's part Oprah and part Springer. Mrs. Madrigal is getting ready to go to Lesbos with her daughter Mona for a month or so.
Burke Andrew, last seen running from the cannibal Episcopals in book two, is back in town, offering Mary Ann a syndicated show based in New York.
What follows is the end of Brian and Mary Ann, mixed with Michael's fear about what his 600 T-cells mean in the face of something on his leg, and a few interludes on the beaches of Lesbos.
The problem is that we never really see what has become of Brian and Mary Ann, since their ending is almost bloodless, even as they hurt each other. We see Michael trying to play peacemaker, and Thack becoming more militant as the dying continues. (Seriously, he builds a trellis with hopes of getting pink roses to make a triangle shape on it.) We see Bill Rivera again, last seen in the bushes with Father Paddy at the end of book three.
We also get something similar to ________ ________ back in book three, as we meet the Rands, he a fashion designer, she an admin at the rehab clinic he went through. Rand, who raises money for AIDS with Liz Taylor, but professes his heterosexual love for his wife everywhere he can, is also sleeping with every man who will say yes. That friction between personal and public life really lies like a shark under the waters of the plot, as we discuss the end of Arch Gidde, who died suddenly of "Liver Cancer".
I'm happy we as a society have seemingly gone well beyond this "Hide the faggots in the closet" mentality, but here's a striking reminder of how we swept the dying under a rug and pretended they didn't exist. Something that many of us missed due to age or being dead.
I still cry at the end, even knowing how it all comes out. It hurts. It's not the howling pain that consumed book four, but more the pain and anger of those who have been denied any kind of dignity or acknowledgement of who they are or their personhood.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Blank verse and no reflection
So, among the many piles of books around the house from various book sales, I happened to find a copy of Lori Handeland's Shakespeare Undead, which happily filled my time this week.
We're quite typically in Elizabethan England, following around one playwright at the Rose theater, who just happens to be a necro-vampire, able to see ghosts and raise the dead. In opposing chapters, we have Kate, who's husband has land in the New World. That said husband is away most of the time is a good thing, as it allows Kate to hunt an increasing zombie population through the streets of London while disguised as a boy. The two meet and fall in some kind of love, with both hiding secrets.
In this mix, we have a plot of foulest treason versus the monarch, who does show up towards the end; an interfering nurse, who eventually gets locked up in the stables as a plague victim; and more verses and plot lines out of the folio that should likely be legal. (There are even a few future plots thrown in, as we see Willy have visions of The Wizard of Oz and The Sixth Sense.)
For the most part the Shakespeare references are the well known ones, although even then I likely missed a few; and the plot breezes along quite nicely, poking fun while also honoring the source materials.
We're quite typically in Elizabethan England, following around one playwright at the Rose theater, who just happens to be a necro-vampire, able to see ghosts and raise the dead. In opposing chapters, we have Kate, who's husband has land in the New World. That said husband is away most of the time is a good thing, as it allows Kate to hunt an increasing zombie population through the streets of London while disguised as a boy. The two meet and fall in some kind of love, with both hiding secrets.
In this mix, we have a plot of foulest treason versus the monarch, who does show up towards the end; an interfering nurse, who eventually gets locked up in the stables as a plague victim; and more verses and plot lines out of the folio that should likely be legal. (There are even a few future plots thrown in, as we see Willy have visions of The Wizard of Oz and The Sixth Sense.)
For the most part the Shakespeare references are the well known ones, although even then I likely missed a few; and the plot breezes along quite nicely, poking fun while also honoring the source materials.
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