The calamity-prone residents of 28 Barbary Lane are at it again in this deliciously dark novel of romance and betrayal.

The calamity-prone residents of 28 Barbary Lane are at it again in this deliciously dark novel of romance and betrayal.

While Anna Madrigal imprisons an anchor-woman in her basement, Michael Tolliver looks for love at the National Gay Rodeo, DeDe Halcyon Day and Mary Ann Singleton track a charismatic psychopath across Alaska, and society columnist Prue Giroux loses her heart to a derelict living in a San Francisco park.

Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads the eccentric tenants of Barbary Lane through heartbreak and triumph, through nail-biting terrors and gleeful coincidences in 1970s San Francisco.

The result is a glittering and addictive comedy of manners that continues to beguile new generations of readers.