The Tales of
the City writer on celebrity, meeting guys online,
the new Night Listener movie -- and Michael
Tolliver Lives!
Armistead Maupin is a man I dreamt up was the
title of a 1993 BBC documentary that fueled further
speculation that the famous gay author's name is, in
fact, an anagram. Not true, says Maupin, writer of the
celebrated six-book Tales of the City series.
But dreams and
deceptions are never far from the heart of a Maupin tale,
and The Night Listener, Maupin's most recent
book--now a major film--is no exception. Maupin sat down
with PlanetOut for a phone interview from his San
Francisco home this week.
Tell us about the film The Night Listener.
The film itself involves a New York City radio
storyteller, Gabriel Noone, who strikes up a
friendship with one of his fans, an abused 14-year-old
teenager who is suffering from AIDS, who does not have much
longer to live. This friendship comes into his life at an
important time, because he has just broken up with his
partner and he's in need of a friendly listener. His
partner begins to raise questions about the caller on
the other end of the line, and all hell breaks loose.
I don't want to
tell much more than that because I think it's the type of
film that people should discover for themselves. There is a
lot going on in this film that you don't see coming.
Now this was based on a real life experience that
you had yourself, correct?
Absolutely; the real-life story is somewhat like
I just told you. I was sent the galleys of a
manuscript back in 1993 and subsequently struck up a
friendship with a kid on the phone. My partner, Terry
Anderson, who is also one of the screenwriters,
initially brought up the question of the child's
identity. Unlike Gabriel, I suspected something was going on
somewhat earlier. But it was hard to wrap my head around why
someone would do this. It may interest you to know
that my breakup with Terry and this mystery did not
happen concurrently in real life. That is a writer's
device, which places Gabriel under even greater pressure
when the mystery begins to reveal itself. I actually
began to write the novel about two weeks after Terry
and I broke up. I think the entire piece is colored by
the gloom and despair of that experience.
Why did you choose to partner with Terry on the
screenplay? Did that come about naturally?
I felt it was the right thing to do because we
had both shared the experience. Not only the mystery
of the boy on the phone, but the breakup itself -- I
think it was a lot harder on both of us than either one
imagined, because it requires you to dredge up a lot of old
shit and discuss each other's angles on that shit.
(Laughs.)
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