A collection of underdeveloped and assorted characters, confusing intersecting stories and bizarrely outlandish plot, Maupin’s More Tales of the City is a chaotic mess of love, loss and…cannibalism? Mixing so many seemingly random and unneeded story elements, with a healthy dose of awkward plot devices, this story, like most sequels, is better left unwritten.
The story picks up on a group of characters who were established in the first book in this series and written to allow readers to join the story at any of the books, means a lot of introductions are in order, in a messy furore of names and half-written backstories that come at you faster than any reasonable reader can deal with. Add into this characters written in fleetingly whom are far more memorable than half of our main cast, and locations that span across America, you are left with this chaotic mess that can only be reasonably unscrambled with a pin board and a lot of red lines.
Many of the characters blend into one, and those that don’t set up for breakneck transitions in other stories. Having read the fourth and fifth books and now the second, there are many characters who have an extreme amount of progress set up for the third instalment, set to be as puzzlingly rushed as this was. Many of the characters go on near-cyclical stories, finishing the book quite similarly to how they started it, leaving readers with an underwhelmed, bored sense that so many successful sequels impart upon us.
The representation in this book, however, should be commended, with LGBTQ+ people, Trans+ people and sex workers represented in this story, largely positively. It touches on a range of issues that directly affect each of these groups, and deals with them effectively and successfully, shutting down homophobic and transphobic characters with an efficiency and tact that I wish had been applied to the rest of this story. With so many difficult issues tackled, some may find this challenging to read from a content warnings point of view, but many of these are fleeting, with only a few forming core tenets of this story.
More Tales of the City is a story trying to say a lot, and frankly, saying way too much. I’m all for ambitious storylines, but cannibalistic cults exposed by an amnesiac who throws up at the sight of roses who only returns to the city by just so happening to bump into someone from there on a cruise? Okay, sure. There are so many ways this story could have gone to be ambitious without straying into outlandish, but this balance isn’t struck here and the story suffers significantly as a result.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
More Tales of the City (ISBN: 0-552-99877-X) was published in 1980. A copy is available to borrow from the LGBTQ+ Lending Library in the LGBTQ+ Lounge
