Michael Tolliver Lives!

Philip's latest blog post reminded me that one of my favorite authors, Armistead Maupin, is releasing his newest novel next week.

The book is titled, "Michael Tolliver Lives". The title alone is enough to make me very happy and excited. Michael Tolliver was always my personal favorite in the series - enough so, that I even call "my Michael" by his nickname, Mouse.

The last time we heard from Michael Tolliver, and the rest of the Tales of the City gang was in 1989, and Michael was coping with his positive HIV status, which at the time, came with the assumption that he wouldn't have many more years to live. I'm thrilled to know that one of my favorite characters is alive and well, nearly 20 years later.

When I saw Armistead Maupin at a book signing a few months ago, he explained that part of his reasons for writing this book show how much the world of HIV has changed since 1989. Although there is still no cure, and sadly, people are still contracting the disease, he wanted to focus on the good news that there are new drugs/cocktails out there that are prolonging the lives of people living with HIV. People who were diagnosed with HIV a couple of decades ago, never thought they would still be living 20 years later. Maupin said that he has several friends who are (thankfully) living longer than they had ever expected, and he knew it was important to let his readers know that Michael Tolliver was one of them.

I have lost friends over the years to HIV/AIDS. I also have friends who have been living with the disease, successfully, for many years. This book - which I haven't even read yet - already touches me on a very personal level. I can't wait to see what Michael Tolliver has been up to all these years, and what kind of adventures he has had.

Here's a nice review that I just pulled from Amazon.com:

Starred Review. Maupin denies that this is a seventh volume of his beloved Tales of the City, but—happily—that's exactly what it is, with style and invention galore. When we left the residents of 28 Barbary Lane, it was 1989, and Michael "Mouse" Tolliver was coping with the supposed death sentence of HIV. Now, improved drug cocktails have given him a new life, while regular shots of testosterone and doses of Viagra allow him a rich and inventive sex life with a new boyfriend, Ben, "twenty-one years younger than I am—an entire adult younger, if you must insist on looking at it that way." Number 28 Barbary Lane itself is no more, but its former tenants are doing well, for the most part, in diaspora. Michael's best friend, ladies' man Brian Hawkins, is back, and unprepared for his grown daughter, Shawna, a pansexual it-girl journalist à la Michelle Tea, to leave for a New York career. Mrs. Madrigal, the transsexual landlady, is still radiant and mysterious at age 85. Maupin introduces a dazzling variety of real-life reference points, but the story belongs to Mouse, whose chartings of the transgressive, multigendered sex trends of San Francisco are every bit as lovable as Mouse's original wet jockey shorts contest in the very first Tales, back in 1978. (June)
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