<BLOCKQUOTE>"An extended love letter to a magical San Francisco."<br>--<i>New York Times Book Review</i></BLOCKQUOTE> <p>When an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife decide to start a family, they discover there's more to making a baby then meets the eye. Help arrives in the form of a grieving gay neighbor, a visiting monarch, and the dashing young lieutenant who defects from her yacht. Bittersweet and profoundly affecting, <i>Babycakes</i> was the first work of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS. <BLOCKQUOTE> <P>"Armistead is a true original. His tales are bang up-to-date. They will surprise and maybe even shock you, but, I promise, they will make you laugh."<BR>--Ian McKellen <P>"Maupin has a genius for observation. His characters have the timing of vaudeville comics, flawed by human frailty and fueled by blind hop." <BR><I>--Denver Post</I> <P>"Armistead Maupin's San Francisco saga careens beautifully on."<BR> --<I> New York Times Book Review</I></BLOCKQUOTE>