Wrapping up nearly 40 years worth of tales

AnnaMadrigal is 92 now, frail and living with a friend/ caregiver in a DuboceTriangle apartment. Those seemingly carefree days onRussian Hill so lovingly chronicled by ArmisteadMaupin in “Tales of the City” and itsmany sequels are distant now. But everyone’s favorite transgendered landlady is still armed with her trademark one- liners, her intuitions remain undimmed, and she lives life as completely and creatively as she can.

“Somepeople drink to forget. Personally, I smoke to remember,” she said in1980’ s “MoreTales of the City.” That’s the quote chosen byMaupin as one of the epigrams to “TheDays of AnnaMadrigal,” the ninth and apparently final book in the series.

Newbies to the “Tales” series needn’tworry; Maupin provides the needed 411as the action unfolds. Pivotal to it all, still, is Mrs. Madrigal, whose mysterious past and bohemian air first enchanted San Franciscans in1976, when the San Francisco Chronicle began to serialize the story.

Theremay be arguments over whether San Francisco still has a central role in “TheDays of AnnaMadrigal.” Maupin, wholeft the city for a newlife with his husband, Christopher Turner, in Santa Fe, N. M., sets a good chunk of the action inNevada, inWinnemucca and the BlackRock Desert. We spoke with the 69- year- oldMaupin by phone fromSanta Fe; here is an edited transcript.