By David Eugene Perry–
Thank goddess for Armistead Maupin. Thank goodness there’s another Tale to treasure. Mona of the Manor is a loving, literary amber that preserves all the warmth, wit, and fragile, fractured humanity of Maupin’s original Tales of the City while giving birth to several new residents of his universe.
His latest work is time travel to an era of homophobia battling love, of hatred on the ramparts trying to hold back humanity. Of course, actually, it’s not time travel at all: Mona of the Manor may be set 30 years in the past, but its parallels are right in the moment. The locale may be Thatcherite England, but the lessons are of Trumpian America.
Not so much a resurrection of one of Maupin’s most beloved characters, Mona Ramsey, Mona of the Manner is a renaissance of the same: a feisty red head very much her mother’s daughter. Though Maupin has said that “this is the last Tales of the City novel, and this time I mean it,” if ever a book, or a character, was set to pick up her mother’s joints, this is it.
But until, or if then,pick up Mona of the Manor and get ready for a rollicking good read. Whether you’re a Maupin regular or are coming to his beautifully and gracefully crafted characters for the first time, you’ll love Mona.
Welcome to Mona’s Easley House, the English Barbary Lane, and very worthy of the legacy. It’s something to dance around the bonfire about with a bottle of scrumpy.
David Eugene Perry is the best-selling author of the award-winning mystery thriller “Upon This Rock” from Pace Press, currently being developed as a screenplay with a sequel, “Thorns of the 15 Roses” underway. He is also a journalist with hundreds of articles in print for such outlets as the “San Francisco Bay Times,” “The Advocate,” “The Desert Sun,” “The Utne Reader,” and “The San Francisco Examiner.”
Published on March 7, 2024
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