[In the following review, Hagan compares the themes of Maybe the Moon with those of the Tales novels.]

It's an airy spacious place, a penthouse cresting a Noe Valley hill, that Armistead Maupin calls home. Even on a cloudy San Francisco summer day, the living room glows with light from the expanse of windows looking out over the city—Maupin's home of twenty years. As an avid reader of Tales of the City, I arrived with a bounty of questions regarding his latest novel, in which he strays from his familiar San Francisco cast and setting and moves to contemporary Los Angeles to explore the trials of a 31-inch tall Jewish woman in Tinseltown. I had read the new book, had been assured that Maupin was still Maupin, and was anxious to discuss this new display of familiar Maupin themes. But first I wanted to know why L.A?—why a dwarf?

"I had a friend [Tammy De Treaux] who was 31 inches tall. I met her on a cruise, at a cocktail party, and we hit it off instantly. I was like anybody else—thrown at first and in love in about twenty minutes. The best way to describe her is as a sort of condensed Bette Midler: enormous personality obviously developed to compensate for her size, with a great loving heart and a terrific sense of humor."

Seeing Tammy's constant struggle to be recognized in a world none too receptive to her, Maupin found a parallel to his own experience as a gay man, and the inspiration for Cadence Roth, the main character of Maybe the Moon. He was well aware that people would be skeptical about the ostensibly bizarre subject matter, and that many would open Maybe the Moon in search of the familiar and beloved Tales cast. But he was ready for fresh material, something perhaps less "white bread" than the Tales series, a challenging new range for his voice. "I think in many ways the messages are identical," he says rightfully, ending with a light laugh. "I'm not sure I could turn a corner and come back as Dennis Cooper."

"I get a tremendous kick out of recording the flavor of the times and I didn't think it should pass unnoticed that there were hookers on Hollywood Boulevard wearing desert camouflage tube tops." And certainly one printable quality of Maupin's writing is his ability to deliver social message through intuitive, timely portraits.

"I thought, if nothing else, in years to come people will pick the book up and read it and realize that there were some people in this country who thought that it was barbaric for us to go over and bomb 200,000 people to no end except to protect the interests of an oilman president. Hopefully people will read Maybe the Moon and realize that being ridiculous lies not in being 31 inches tall, or gay, or a nonwhite American, but in hanging yellow ribbons from mailboxes to commemorate a massacre."

There's no denying that the book carries an agenda, or that Maupin always writes with an agenda, but he does so without obscuring the humanistic, empathetic intentions of his work. His agenda is one of feeling the constants in human nature, seeing the differences, and celebrating both. "The real message of Maybe the Moon is that the only true stars are the people who present themselves to the world exactly the way they are, and that should be the only true goal of any full-fledged human being. So many people spend a lifetime trying to be normal and end up tragically becoming that way. They succeed and it's the worst thing that could possibly happen to them."

While Cadence struggles against the Hollywood norm for stardom as actress and singer rather than freak-show attraction and costume stuffer, her gay friend Jeff finds himself playing mistress to Callum, a closet gay. "When he's lamenting the fact that stars won't come out [of the closet] she remembers that her mother used to wait for Paul Newman to declare himself as a Jew and was never rewarded in that regard. These are simply people trying to be themselves in a world that doesn't ask that of them." These are minorities in America struggling against their relegated closet roles.

"There may be people who think that my hatred of the closet comes through too loud, but I really don't care because I haven't seen that position taken in novels ever. Because there are a lot of gay writers out there, but very few of them are really attacking the web of secrecy that I feel keeps us enslaved…. To be against the closet is to have to stand up against very powerful gay people, and I think that's probably slowed my career to a certain degree, because a lot of people in Hollywood would have been much more receptive to Tales of the City if I hadn't been so openly contemptuous of their own secret lives. But I'm convinced, after nearly twenty years of being out of the closet, that the problem remains our unwillingness to declare ourselves and get on with our lives."

Since he completed Maybe the Moon in May, Maupin has been enjoying his post-writing period of respite, preparing for book tours in America and Britain and taking care of business, or rather, he says with a laugh, watching his lover Terry Anderson take care of business. He excitedly recounted the details of a production deal with Working Title Films of London. He and Terry recently lead British producers around San Francisco on the "Tales Tour"—a group of landmarks featured in the first novel. In Fall of 1993 the first of the Tales books will be aired as a limited series in six one-hour episodes on Channel Four in Britain. Richard Kramer, the head writer for Thirtysomething, is adapting the book for television and, as Maupin relayed with obvious excitement, "He's being extremely faithful to the text…. To see one's words become truly three-dimensional—it's an exhilarating experience."

So why not in America? "They're scared to death of it in this country, especially in Hollywood, because it treats homosexuality in such a matter of fact and innocent way. They don't mind producing movies for television in which tortured teenagers or tortured grownups are dealing with this terrible secret, because that falls right in line with their notion of homosexuality as the last taboo. They're tremendously wary of communicating the idea that same-sex relationships have strong parallels with opposite-sex relationships … But its actually a relief there's no Hollywood money involved because that means there will be no Hollywood censorship." Still, he is hopeful that the success of this series will help prod American producers out of their squeamish, adolescent treatment of sexuality, and there'll be takers after all.

Maupin isn't sure where his writing will take him next. "Terry and I bought a farmhouse in New Zealand. When we go this year it'll be our third New Zealand summer, which is during our winter … it's perfect. The weather's identical to Northern California but its flipflop so you get a nice San Francisco summer all year round." (Looking out to the fogshrouded city, he falls into laughter). "I've become so intrigued by the experience of being a gay couple living in this small rural New Zealand community that it may just show up in the next novel. I'm not really positive at this point. I like to let things percolate for a while."