SOURCE: "Size Matters," in The Village Voice, Vol. 37, No. 48, December 1, 1992, p. 58.

In the following review of Maybe the Moon, Ulin contends that the characters are stereotypical and the story fails to mirror real life.

Back in the late '70's, Armistead Maupin came up with a truly brilliant idea: to write a serial novel, a comedy of manners that would unfold day to day in the pages of a major metropolitan newspaper. It was a very 19th century concept—Dickensian, even—but Maupin's approach seemed completely here-and-now. His intention was to take America's shifting cultural landscape and reflect it in a work that would feature a wide cross-section of characters—gay and straight, male and female, rich and poor—all residents of Maupin's beloved San Francisco. The result, Tales of the City, grew over the next decade from a local Bay Area phenomenon into a six-volume national bestseller...