4 reasons you should read Tales of the City for Pride Month

It’s June so get ready for lots and lots of Pride Month content. We start by telling you 4 reasons why you should read the Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin for Pride Month. For those who don’t know, Tales of the City is a series of books that were originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle (books 1-4) and the San Francisco Examiner (book 5) since 1974. With the release of book 10, Mona of the Manor, this year, let’s discover why this series is the books to read for Pride Month.

Coming Out:

Michael Tolliver is one of the main characters in the series and he is gay. While everyone he is friends with in San Francisco knows this already, his parents who live in Orlando, do not. As such, in More Tales of the City, Michael, aged 27 then, decided to write a heartfelt letter to his parents to come out. It is not an easy feat, especially since his mum had previously written him multiple letters complaining about LGBT+ people. The scene when his best friend Mary Ann read the letter that Michael’s mum wrote him, and Michael finally deciding to come out to his parents, made our heart break and swell at the same time.

Transgender: 

One of the characters is transgender and as this was revealed to friends and family members, everyone had different reactions as expected. However, Armistead Maupin carefully thought about how all of these characters would react and why, and there were serious discussions of pronouns. And it’s not all serious, as characters also poke fun and crack jokes at this, though only lovingly.

AIDS: 

Tales of the City came out when the AIDS happened and Babycakes and Significant Others addressed just how much the crisis affected the LGBTQ+ community in San Francisco. The portrayal of grief over losing friends and loved ones, of uncertainty over how this would affect their future, and of anger over how the straight people ignored their crisis, were all done very well.

Further Tales of the City is a fun thriller:

But most importantly, in Armistead Maupin’s books, LGBT+ characters get to just be characters. They hold jobs, they fall in love, and they get their hearts broken. And in the third book, Further Tales of the City, the friends were involved in kidnapping, and other thrilling activities that just any other friend group would find themselves get into. Well, not really but you get the point.