Names and places often become inextricably linked. Joyce and Dublin. Hemingway and Havana. Salinger and New York. Armistead Maupin and San Francisco. That Maupin has become so intertwined with the home of his iconic Tales of the City series is unsurprising; that most of his early life was so at odds with the later life that he built is certainly more of a reveal.
Maupin was raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, the son of a Christian, Confederate-supporting father, and his beloved Mummie, the daughter of an English suffragette. He discovered writing, and Demigods magazine, early, but they didn’t seem to expand his horizons. Maupin was a right-wing free marketeer, ideologically battling liberal peaceniks and Socialists but this outward conservatism was, more likely, an appeal for his father’s approval.