The Days of Anna Madrigal

Nov 14, 2025 2:59 AM

Author:Armistead Maupin

The ninth novel in the belovedTales of the Cityseries, Armistead Maupin’s best-selling San Francisco saga.

'Wonderful. . . . As compulsively readable and endearing as all the previous novels have been’ Booklist (starred review)

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Now ninety-two, Mrs. Madrigal has seemingly found peace with her ‘logical family’ in San Francisco. Some members of that family are bound for the otherworldly landscape of Burning Man, the art community in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert but Anna 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. There she journeys into the dusty troubled heart of her Depression childhood to unearth a lifetime of secrets and dreams and attend to some unfinished business she has long avoided.

Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads the eccentric tenants of Barbary Lane through heartbreak and triumph, through nail-biting terrors and gleeful coincidences in a sexually-liberated San Francisco. The result is a glittering and addictive comedy of manners that continues to beguile new generations of readers.

Reviews

One of the most acclaimed sagas of our time…A celebration of life in all its craziness…As good as anything Maupin has offered us

—— John Sutherland , The Times

The brilliance of Maupin is his mingling of high camp with tragedy and deep feeling – all with a miraculously light touch

—— Daily Mail , Wendy Holden

A proper Maupin-esque swansong – moving, funny and obscene. We expect nothing less

—— Isabel Berwick , Financial Times

Christopher Isherwood was absolutely correct when he declared Maupin to be the Dickens of the modern world

—— Chuck Palahniuk

The Tales of the City sequence has been one of the literary menus plaisirs of the past decade - Maupin with his elegance and charm has found a place among the classics

—— Observer

May well be the funniest series of novels currently in progress...Maupin's ear for dialogue is as acute as his feeling for characterisation, and the net result is as engaging a read as you are likely to encounter

—— The Times

Comedy in its most classical form...some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read

—— Guardian

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