If, dear reader, you don’t know who or what Dorian Gray was – and don’t care to find out – then read no further. This review of Armistead Maupin’s latest book, Michael Tolliver Lives, is not for you.
Few older readers will need an explanation as to who or what Michael Tolliver was/is. For those younger, gamer, readers who’ve decided to press on with this review, Michael Tolliver was the central character – a young, gay man – in a series of novels written by Maupin in the 1970s and 1980s. The books explored the relationships and adventures of a group of unlikely characters who lived at 28, Barbary Lane in San Francisco under the benevolent but watchful eye of a mysterious landlady, Anna Madrigal.
Like Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the Tales of the City books began life as a serial in the popular press. There the similarity ends.
It would be interesting to know why Maupin has written Michael Tolliver Lives. I was always drawn to the assumption that MT was AM, and with this new book, that assumption, in part, lives on. It is easy to believe this is Maupin rationalising, and celebrating his autumnal years.
Michael is now in his 50s, older and wiser, dealing with his “meds†to keep the HIV under control, and working happily as a gardener/nursery man. Some of his old friends from the Barbary Lane days are still around, and some come back later in the book – the super-straight Mary Ann for example.
Michael is embracing the passing years with humour and alacrity. In our gay world where youth and good looks are everything, Michael’s journey, while not a rarity, is something to the valued, treasured. The fact that he has an adoring partner young enough to be his son is a plus. But the partner, Ben, seems to have no faults – almost an idealised image. Of whom, I wonder?
Maupin’s easy, infectious style, with its occasional acerbic barb, remains a joy – and in some ways, tempts the reader to discount the content of Michael Tolliver Lives.
People have read it in a day – like you read an airport book on a long flight. Then it’s been filed away with the rest of the Maupin oeuvre.
But Maupin has some important things to say about relationships and getting older – as indeed did Wilde in Dorian Gray.
While Wilde plunged head-long into questions of aesthetics and the metaphysical (he was writing in the 1890s, after all), Maupin deals with more un-aesthetic but – for the 21st century gay man – far more relevant issues.
He puts MT to the acid test in the final chapters, when Michael finds out what “family†means to him. Is it those people to whom he is related by an accident of birth? Or is it other people he has cared for and loved for most of his adult life?
Maupin also shows the positive side of getting older – albeit in a reflective, nostalgic and at times wistful way. But these reactions come naturally with the passing of the years, and the accumulation of memories.
And, through MT, he puts to the sword, the concept of the sad, silly and vain Dorian Gray, who trades eternal youth for his soul. After reading this novel, for me the image of Dorian Gray doesn’t really exit stage left. Rather, the trap door happily opens, and he simply disappears from view. Permanently.
Michael Tolliver Lives is an affirmation of a life well-lived – tubby tummy and all. If it is the author’s journey, Armistead Maupin should be proud – and content.
—
This article was written by Will Lowes and appears courtesy of Blaze Media, South Australia’s GLBT publication. For more Blaze articles, visit www.blazemedia.com.au.
