Back to Barbary Lane The Final Tales of the City Omnibus

"An old fashioned pleasure... there's been nothing like it since the heyday of the serial novel 100 years ago... Tearing through [the tales] one after the other, as I did, allows instant gratification; it also lets you appreciate how masterfully they're constructed. No matter what Maupin writes next, he can look back on the rare achievement of having built a little world and made it run." --Walter Kendrick, Village Voice Literary Supplement By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Armistead Maupin's bestselling Tales of the City series stands as an incomparable blend of great storytelling and incisive social commentary. These six classic comedies, some of which originally appeared as serials in San Francisco newspapers, have won Maupin critical acclaim around the world and enthralled legions of devoted fans. Back to Barbary Lane comprises the second trilogy of the series--Babycakes (1984), Significant Others (1987), and Sure of You (1989) -- concluding the saga of the tenants, past and present, of Mrs. Madrigal's beloved apartment house on Russian Hill. While the first trilogy celebrated the carefree excesses of the seventies, this volume tracks its hapless, all-to-human cast across a decade troubled by plague, deceit and overweening ambition. Like its companion volume, 28 Barbary Lane, Back to Barbary Lane is distinguished by what The Guardian of London has called "some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read." It promises hours of literate entertainment for readers old and new. With a foreword by the author.