SOURCE: "Politics, Power and Pride," in The Gay Novel in America, Garland Publishing, 1991, pp. 288-89.

The author of The Gay Novel: The Male Homosexual Image in America (1983), Levin is an American educator, biographer, and nonfiction writer. In the following excerpt, he contends that Tales of the City presents homosexuality as "a single facet of the human persona" and an ordinary part of the social milieu.

Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City consists of interrelated vignettes that were originally printed as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle. (The work was so commercially successful that it led to six sequels.) Despite the humble newspaper origins, the tales offer pleasant diversions mixed with insight—more so than works with more prestigious aims. The short escapades describe the lives of young San Franciscans, most of whom are single; a few older characters and married couples complete the picture. About half are...