SOURCE: "Serial Thriller," in The Village Voice Literary Supplement, No. 79, October, 1989, p. 13.

An American educator and critic, Kendrick is the author of The Novel-Machine: The Theory and Fiction of Anthony Trollope (1980). In the following essay, he focuses on the development of the characters and themes in Maupin's Tales of the City novels.

Eleven years and 2000 pages later, Mary Ann Singleton has finally arrived. Way back when, at the beginning of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City (1978), she was a naive Clevelander who'd come to San Francisco for a week's vacation and decided not to go home. Now, at the end of the sixth and final installment, Sure of You, she's moved to New York, where she hosts a nationally syndicated talk show, Mary Ann in the Morning. People calls her "the new Mary Hart."

"The who?" asks Mrs. Madrigal (Mary Ann's ex-landlady) when Brian Hawkins (Mary Ann's ex-husband...