A Spinner of Tales Who Draws From Life, Too

There’s a short and sweet declaration made by a 13-year-old boy to the adult male narrator in Armistead Maupin’s new novel, “The Night Listener,” that is sure to strike a chord with the author’s fans.

“The heart is measured by how much you love, not by how much you are loved by others,” says the boy, Pete, switching the meaning and the words Glinda the Good Witch spoke to the Tin Woodman in “The Wizard of Oz.” The boy is talking to the book’s protagonist, a radio storyteller who bears a remarkable resemblance on the page to the author himself.

Maupin, 56, knows both ends of the emotional terrain here, having built--with a social historian’s skill, a storyteller’s passion and a gay man’s life--a loyal readership beyond cult labels. His “Tales of the City” serials, in which a motley crew of neighbors at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco lived out the changing world of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, have sold nearly 4 million copies to date. Showtime is preparing the third installment, “Further Tales of the City,” as a miniseries for airing in April.

Maupin is away from his emerald City by the Bay on a transatlantic book tour for “The Night Listener” (HarperCollins, October). Tonight he’s in downtown L.A. to read from the book and sign copies at the Los Angeles Central Library.

Question: You’ve put a twist on the old-fashioned book-promotion tour since your last book in 1992 [“Maybe the Moon,” HarperCollins]. This time you had nightly readings on the Internet. How did that go, and what kind of audience did you reach?

Answer: That was the brainstorm of Terry Anderson, my business partner [and lover until four years ago; today they’re good friends]. After he finished his first reading of the novel, he pointed out to me that this technology now exists, and he felt it would be a perfect opportunity for me to let “The Night Listener” become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the author of the novel would become the radio storyteller that the central character is. Consequently, “The Night Listener” was the first novel ever to be serialized on the Internet in its entirety in audio form prior to publication. To judge from the people who stand in line, an awful lot of folks got a kick out of tuning into the novel [at https://www.salon.com] as if it were a radio series from the ‘40s.

Q: You’ve said the character of Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, a Southern newcomer to San Francisco in “Tales of the City,” was based partly on you. How much of your new book’s narrator, Gabriel Noone, a San Francisco storyteller, is you?

A: While this novel is emotionally autobiographical, I have played fast and loose with the facts. I’m a storyteller first and foremost, so that governs the way I arrange the truth. The characters in the novel resemble me and some of the people I love, but I have cast us in what I think of as sort of a thriller of the heart.

Q: There are very powerful and personal issues in “Night Listener.” Were they difficult to draw out?

A: It’s as if I took the particulars of my own experience and tried to create a novel that would conjure up the same feeling I had when I saw “Vertigo” at the age of 15. I’ve always loved the themes of that film, its exploration of longing and loss. And I’ve always wanted to write a story that gripped people in the same way, kept them guessing and also probed some serious emotional concerns. This was a much tougher book for me to write because I had to take a really long, hard look at my own life. It’s funny how people connect with it.

Q: Perhaps the strongest theme in your writing is one of family, sometimes literal but mostly not. How do you feel about your books being put in the gay fiction shelves of a chain bookstore after their debut?

A: I’m extremely annoyed when my books are segregated in the back of the bookstore. Not because I’m not proud of being gay or proud of being honest about being gay, but I don’t want that to be the only place I can be found. My work has always been about everyone and for everyone.

Q: Because of the universal family of friends?

A: I think we’re all searching for permanence in our life, which is an impossible commodity to achieve. So I take special joy in the family that I’ve constructed for myself. I would happily scuttle my career tomorrow if I had to make a choice between that and the people I love.

BE THERE

Armistead Maupin discusses “The Night Listener,” Los Angeles Central Library, 650 W. 5th St. Tonight, 7 p.m. Free. (213) 228-7555.