The Days of Anna Madrigal
Inspiration for the Netflix Limited Series, Tales of the City
The eighth novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin's best-selling San Francisco saga.
The Days of Anna Madrigal, the suspenseful, comic, and touching novel, follows one of modern literature's most unforgettable and enduring characters--Anna Madrigal, the legendary transgender landlady of 28 Barbary Lane--as she embarks on a road trip that will take her deep into her past.
Now ninety-two, and committed to the notion of "leaving like a lady," Mrs. Madrigal has seemingly found peace with her "logical family" in San Francisco: her devoted young caretaker Jake Greenleaf; her former tenant Brian Hawkins and his daughter Shawna; and Michael Tolliver and Mary Ann Singleton, who have known and loved Anna for nearly four decades.
Some members of Anna's family are bound for the otherworldly landscape of Burning Man, the art community in Nevada's Black Rock Desert where 60,000 revelers gather to construct a city designed to last only one week. Anna herself has another destination in mind: a lonely stretch of road outside of Winnemucca where the 16-year-old boy she once was ran away from the whorehouse he called home. With Brian and his beat-up RV, she journeys into the dusty troubled heart of her Depression childhood to unearth a lifetime of secrets and dreams and attend to unfinished business she has long avoided.
Armistead Maupin launched his fictive Tales of the City serial in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1976, later released as a six-volume series of novels, three of which were produced as miniseries for television. He lives in San Francisco.
"Wonderful ... Maupin's last novel in the (Tales of the City) series is as compulsively readable and endearing as all the previous novels have been." -- Booklist (starred review)
"Maupin spins his usual good-hearted web of intrigues involving people who have created their own communities." -- Kirkus Reviews
"The ninth Tales of the City installment is Maupin's farewell to his beloved cast of characters ... Maupin's flare for dialogue and fully realized contemporary characterizations is again on display ... this installment is a memorable, satisfying capstone to his series." -- Publishers Weekly
