Tranquillity reigns in the ancient redwood forest until a women-only music festival sets up camp downriver from an all-male retreat for the ruling class. Among those entangled in the ensuing mayhem are a lovesick nurseryman, a panic-stricken philanderer, and the worlds most beautiful fat woman. Significant Others is Armistead Maupins cunningly observed meditation on marriage, friendship, and sexual nostalgia.
From Publishers Weekly Readers familiar with Maupin's Tales of the City series will greet this latest installment like a welcome visit from old friends. Once again, the action focuses on the misadventures of a cross-section of San Franciscans, who this time take to the country for a late summer weekend in three separate gender-segregated retreats: a gay resort, a lesbian music festival and the infamous encampment of privilege at Bohemian Grove. While the trio of settings couldn't be farther apart in spiritat least on the surfacethey all are within shouting distance of each other on the banks of the Russian River, and the three worlds, inevitably, collide. With its blend of satire, slapstick and melodrama, the novel, which originated as a newspaper serial, is as light as a souffle, although the very real threat of AIDSwhich has claimed one character's gay lover and seems to be closing in on another character, a philandering husband who panics after a brush with illnessgives the story relevance and impact. Maupin writes with a warmth and humor that is sorely missed in some recent gay novels having more overtly literary aspirations; his tales may be sparkling entertainments, but they are lit with a glowing humanity that brings each character to vivid, poignant life.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review "Maupin is a richly gifted comic author... there is room in Armistead Maupin's universe for all of us" Observer "Comedy in its most classical form... some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read" -- Jonathan Coe Guardian "San Francisco is fortunate in having a chronicler as witty and likeable as Armistead Maupin" Independent "Like those of Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Armistead Maupin's novels have all appeared originally as serials... it is the strength of this approach, with its fantastic adventures and astonishingly contrived coincidences, that makes these novels charming and compelling" Literary Review "Wise, witty, loving and caring about the foibles and frailties we all seem to have" -- David Hockney
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