Armistead Maupin

Armistead Maupin has done more than any other writer this century to help straight readers love gay people, to help gay readers love straight ones, to make anyone who is different feel good about themselves and to make an extraordinary number of otherwise rational people suddenly yearn to live in an imaginary rooming house in San Francisco so they could become a cherished intimate of its all-wise pot-growing, transsexual landlady.Patrick Gale's Outline is a biographical tribute to his longstanding friendship with Maupin. Based on long, candid and hilarious conversations between these two outstanding novelists, it covers everything from Maupin's aristocratic Southern background and extreme right wing youth to his battle to wrench open the door on the Hollywood closet and the difficulty of sustaining a highly publicised gay "marriage".