The Book Guy

Names and places often become inextricably linked. Joyce and Dublin. Hemingway and Havana. Salinger and New York. Armistead Maupin and San Francisco. That Maupin has become so intertwined with the home of his iconic Tales of the City series is unsurprising; that most of his early life was so at odds with the later life that he built is certainly more of a reveal.

Maupin was raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, the son of a Christian, Confederate-supporting father, and his beloved Mummie, the daughter of an English suffragette. He discovered writing, and Demigods magazine, early, but they didn’t seem to expand his horizons. Maupin was a right-wing free marketeer, ideologically battling liberal peaceniks and Socialists but this outward conservatism was, more likely, an appeal for his father’s approval.

Maupin joined the army and began to explore his sexuality. He shipped out to Vietnam and fell in love with the country, so much so that he returned, secretly funded on Richard Nixon’s dollar, as part of a group of veterans attesting to the good that the war had done for Vietnam. While John Kerry and co. were protesting the war on the lawn of the White House, Maupin was inside, shaking Tricky Dicky’s hand. (And there’s a photo to prove it.)

Logical Family

Eventually, Maupin ended up in San Francisco. His first job folded, but the serial he created about a group of San Franciscans, the first fictional series in a newspaper in many a year, was picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle and the rest, as they say…

There’s a tasty amount of name-dropping throughout. Maupin soon became the toast of the town, and a close companion of Rock Hudson. History often brushes his shoulder; the passage recounting the vigil for Harvey Milk is especially moving, and contains quite the gut-punch at the end.

Frustratingly, he evokes Ann Coulter and Trump at one point, which breaks the spell and the timelessness, pulling us back into the modern world. That aside, it’s a very interesting look at a writer trying to find his feet and himself, and break out of the world from whence he came.

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Running with Scissors

by Augusten Burroughs (Atlantic Books)

Once you’ve finished with Logical Family, run back to Augusten Burrough’s brilliant memoir. When he’s 13, Burroughs is sent by his mother to live with her unconventional psychiatrist and begins an underage relationship with the psychiatrist’s 30-plus adopted son. A New York Times bestseller, Running with Scissors was the subject of a lawsuit by the family who claimed they were unfairly portrayed within its pages.

Fun Home

by Alison Bechdel (Jonathan Cape)

Now synonymous with the gender-rating movie test that bears her name, Bechdel’s graphic novel/memoir was adapted into a Broadway musical that won five Tony Awards in 2015. The book deals with not only Bechdel’s burgeoning sexuality, but also her realisation that her father was also gay. The book was published in 2006 to unanimously rave reviews and is well worth searching out; it’s one that you’ll return to time and again.