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Amos Lassen wrote on 10/03/2010:

Maupin, Armistead. "Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel", Harper, 2010.
Maupin is Back and as Good as Ever
Amos Lassen
It is always great news to hear that Armistead Maupin has a new book. The "Tales of the City" series has brought many to the printed page and those of us that love the wonderful characters that Maupin has created will have reason to rejoice with this new book.
We mist met Mary Ann Singleton in the first "Tales of the City' book when she came to San Francisco and got an apartment at Anna Madrigal's place. She quickly became one of the gang at Barbary Lane. Now twenty years later, Mary Ann left her family and moved to New York to pursue her career. She came back to San Francisco because of personal problems and the gang was waiting for her. All of those wonderful characters are back--Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, Mary Ann's buddy, now married to a younger guy, Anna, her old landlady, DeDe Halcyon now Halcyon-Wilson, D'orothea Wilson (catch the connection?). They are all older and wiser now but still as charming and alive as ever. Mary Ann has been separated from Shawna, her daughter who has become a sex blogger and who is seeing Otto, a professional clown. Mary Ann is now almost 60 years old and she has important news that she can only share with Mouse and when she goes to tell him she is forced to deal with her past and why she left her husband and daughter for her career.

I suppose we had to eventually hear from Mary Ann again because she has been a pivotal character in the "Tales" books. And now we not only hear from her but she has a book of her own.

I think what I love the most about Maupin and the "Tales" books are the various subplots that go on simultaneously and the come together. Of course, Maupin's characters are wonderfully drawn and the reader often finds himself right in the middle of the action. The characters become friends and this is what makes Maupin so special. And Maupin has a wit about him that he uses throughout his writing. His stories are multi-layered and he uses irony to explore the human psyche. "Tales of the City" has entered the new millennium with a bang and they are just as wonderful and irreverent as they always were. Not many authors can do what Maupin does as he is a master of exploring the human experience and doing so with sublime flair.