sentences:  As well as further developing familiar characters, it explores the differences between the San Francisco of the 1980s, bearing the brunt of the developing AIDS crisis, and the city in the first decade of the new millennium.The realities of aging, both distressing and graceful, is a major theme of the book – as well as the generation gap between gays from the 1970s and 80s and gays from the 2000s.In a departure from the third-person style of the original "Tales" sequence, "Michael Tolliver Lives" is narrated in the first person by the title character.