Madeline
Tales of the City acts as a discrete guide to the city I love. It is a book about the family you make and the star of the show is the heart of the city of San Francisco. The references are a map of past and present places that I am familiar with from living there for half a decade. Just like the characters in Tales of the City, I was not born there but I did leave my heart there.
Premise of Tales Of The City
Tales Of The City is a smorgasbord of eccentric people living in the city of San Francisco. It all starts with Maryanne who decides to permanently move to the city while on vacation and not return to the comfort of her city of Cincinnati. From there we meet Mrs. Madrigal, her weed growing landlord. Brian, her playboy neighbor. Michael, Mr. Gay himself whom I have read the book that focuses on his character. Mona, her neighbor who takes her under her wing including getting her a job. And the group of characters that come with the workplace and much more.
Reading a Book From the 70’s
There were a few things that came up that caught me a bit by surprise while reading Tales of the City. I kept thinking they were making references to something completely different than what was intended as 70’s pop culture is constantly referenced. For example, there is a reference to Barney Google. I know who Barney is (the purple dinosaur) and I know what Google is (the search engine), but I have no idea what a Barney Google is…. so I used Google to find out that Barney Google has nothing to do with Barney nor Google.
A Guide to the City I Love
Because the book about Michael Tolliver was a much more recent book in this series, so I knew the San Francisco in that story so much better than the 1970’s San Francisco. That being said, Tales of the City gave me such a guide to the city I love that I could not help but being taken back. I was still able to follow the story as if it were a guide to the city.
Final Thoughts
The Tales of the City series is a serious series. Meaning there are books on books on books on books and I would love to read them all. That being said, there are also many of other amazing books on earth and I need to make time for all the great books of the world. Will this be my last book in the series? Oh no! Will I read them all? Time will tell. But I will also say, expect me to write about television series in the future.
