It’s no surprise to me that Armistead Maupin’s new novel, Michael Tolliver Lives, gets a June release. It’s the month for gay pride celebrations of every kind, from parades to film festivals, all to commemorate the Stonewall riots that triggered the gay rights movement. But the book and the month have special meaning for me: My late mother loved Maupin’s Tales of the City.

Avidly and faithfully, she watched the televised adaption of the first two books in the series, and she enthusiastically read and praised the first book. As a woman seeking her BA degree late in life, she considered Tales so profound and emotionally effective that she felt it deserved inclusion in any contemporary American lit course. The summer before her cancer returned as a metastasized monster, she gave me a copy of the novel. And when my father brought me her book collection after her death, I found she had failed to collect all of the Tales books, managing only to gather some of Maupin’s titles in a hit-or-miss fashion. Just as her cancer robbed her of her life, it also, I suspect, robbed her of any chance to complete her love affair with these books.

As a young teen, my mother contracted polio and the experience was instrumental in Mom’s ability to identify with the sense of outsiderness and ostracism that queer folk have faced. The illness was trauma enough, but what she never really forgot was how people looked at her, talked about her, and how she was left out of the world’s activities during her two wheelchair-bound years of paralysis.

Let me be clear: My mother did not equate being gay with being ill. She never saw being queer as anything other than another facet of human diversity. But her experiences of being excluded and stared at did open her heart to people left outside the norm. And, let’s face it, although we’ve come a long way bringing queer acceptance to that norm, many Pride film festivals included tales about coming out and its consequences — consequences that often aren’t happy Will-and-Grace outcomes.

I remember watching a couple of the Tales episodes with my mom. In retrospect, I appreciate how it brought us together and allowed us a meeting of our minds over queer matters. It was the catalyst for something of a tradition for us. Every June, if we happen to be together, we would watch whatever queer films we found on Bravo. Sadly, it was too short-lived a tradition.

When I bought Maupin’s new novel, I went to my book shelves and looked at Mom’s meager collection of his work. I think that, this summer, I’ll finish what she started. I’ll get the rest of Maupin’s books, read Michael Tolliver, then the entire Tales series retrospectively. I’ve warned my daughter that my promise to her to finally finish Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell will likely have to compete with this new promise of mine. At first, she wasn’t too thrilled with me, but when she and a girlfriend sat down to watch Bend It Like Beckham for a second time, I knew she would ultimately understand.

Hopefully, there’s be a smile shining down from heaven as well.