Maupin, Armistead

MSU Affiliation

College of Arts and Sciences; Department of English

Creation Date

2025-12-15

Abstract

Armistead Maupin emerged as an author of note in the mid-1970s, earning a reputation for dismantling binary oppositions constructed within the framework of restrictive cultural norms: straight/queer, conservative/liberal, and puritanical/permissive, to name a few. Drawing praise from critics while landing on bestseller lists, Maupin became a literary celebrity whose notoriety rests largely on the Tales of the City series comprising nine novels published between 1978 and 2014. Add to that television adaptations as adept as the original source material at pleasing critics and popular audiences alike, and Maupin can be viewed as the creator of a cultural franchise. Maupin has also published two novels that stand apart even as they are revealed to exist within the Tales expanded universe: Maybe the Moon (1992) and The Night Listener (2000). In 2017, he published Logical Family: A Memoir , which became the basis of a Netflix documentary film, The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin (2017). Maupin's life story reads as a study in personal and professional contradictions and transformations, unfolding much like the serialized path of twists and turns he charts for his most indelible characters. From youth and young adulthood spent as a closeted son of the conservative South to a stint in the military, from a tour of duty in Vietnam to coming out and coming into his own as a gay man in San Francisco, Maupin positioned himself to become a skilled chronicler of the ongoing conflict between cultural and countercultural forces in American society.

Publication Date

3-25-2022

Publication Title

The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction

Publisher

Wiley

First Page

1

Last Page

6

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119431732.ecaf0198