While it seems to me that the character who does this is someone we’re supposed to think badly of, on the other hand, it seemed to me that this was supposed to be a funny moment.

The race of someone’s lover is identified by pointing to a yellow flower. There are also two plot twists that revolve around race, and I don’t think either is handled with particular grace. This lack of diversity is something to keep in mind when approaching the book. I don’t think this lack of diversity is a product of its time – there were other very forward-thinking works of fiction at the same time as this. Particularly noticeable to me was how the Asian-American characters are all peripheral, even with this being San Francisco. Especially for a story set in a city that’s so diverse. While characters are quite loose about who they will sleep with, there’s also a lack of diversity in the cast of main characters that’s jarring. It’s an interesting snapshot of a very particular point in time. Lack of acceptance of queer people is a real threat and concern, and the AIDS crisis had not yet hit.

1970s fashion and freewheeling culture are everywhere. The book is definitely a product of the 1970s. She’s invited into Barbary Lane and declared one of us, although why exactly she’s considered part of the found family is not resolved in the first book. Our window into the queer world in San Francisco is given to us by Mary Ann Singleton – a single cis straight woman who comes from Cleveland for a visit and decides to stay. It’s clear that some restraints were placed upon Maupin, either by the newspaper or simply the culture of the time. The Netflix reboot/update in 2019 brought fresh attention to it, and I thought it was high-time I read the classic. The first tv show miniseries based upon it that premiered in 1994 had a same-sex kiss made history and was also protested ( source).

It is considered a classic of LGBTQIA+ literature.

This was first published as a novel in 1978, although it was published prior to that as a serialized story in a San Francisco newspaper. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests.

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