Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown

The book from beginning to end captured the soul of Provincetown and is a delightful walk through time and place. I learned history I had not known and also was reminded of the familiar places that make one feel truly home at the end of the world, where land and water blend.

On Cape Cod reading Michael Cunningham's LAND'S END: A Walk in Provincetown... The "walk" is not to be taken too literally. This is a book of colors and smells and seasons, mood, and memory as much as history and geography. To begin, Provincetown is that sandy arm of land on the east end of Massachusetts, as if the state was flexing its muscle like a bodybuilder. P-Town is the endpoint, a clenched fist - a place and an attitude. Cunningham gives us a quick sketch of Provincetown's early history where Pilgrims first landed in 1620 (sorry Plymouth), then as a whaling-port, the appearance of Portuguese fishermen, as an artist colony, and now a summer tourist destination. Its natural history of flora and fauna is not overlooked. But this is not Cunningham's main point. Provincetown is a "sanctuary" for eccentrics and visionaries. Art and artists abound. And public displays of affection by gays and lesbians on the narrow, quirky, little town streets are the signature experience for today's visitor. Moneyed tourists from the city, drag queens on roller-blades touting their revues, college girls with perfect midriffs, he and she lesbians arm-in-arm, wizened eccentrics all crowd down Commercial Street. Add-in an annual religious procession to bless the fishermen's fleet, and you've got material for a Fellini movie (for people who still think about Fellini). People-watching is not the only form of entertainment in Provincetown. What should be said is that high energy drag queens that sing and dance in cramped venues like The Post Office Cafe' or Steve's Alibi are very talented and great, sweaty fun. Cunningham has written the kind of book where you have favorite sentences. You can't say that about Fodor's. For brevity, some of mine are on page 54. The publisher's book jacket indicates this offering is to be followed by other 'journeys'. Let's hope the series tries to capture the mystery of special travel locations as does LAND'S END. There is a place in travel literature for slim, easily stow-able guides to the atmosphere of unique places. I recommend Crown Journeys find a similarly gifted writer to take on another disorienting "zero ground" location - Death Valley.

In his pocket guide to Provincetown, Michael Cunningham takes the reader on a stroll of the peninsula, traveling (more or less) from east to west and interrupting his walking tour with random historical anecdotes and mini-portraits of some of the town's more eccentric and/or famous personalities, past and present, from celebrity authors who live there and drag queens and comedians who work there, from Portuguese American residents to seasonal gay tourists. Cunningham also describes his early days there as a young, unpublished author, living off a stipend during the off-season in a world "in its winter slumber ... without jewelry or feathers, like a white marble queen."To be honest, I can't imagine what someone who's never been to Provincetown would make of this volume. This is probably a book best appreciated after (or even during) the first stay. Although the author describes a few favorite shops and sites and he makes recommendations to the would-be visitor, "Land's End" is not a tourist guide, per se, but a personal reminiscence containing as much about the author's friends and acquaintances as about nineteenth-century whalers or the Provincetown Players--"neither more nor less than the story of my own particular devotion," told with the occasional nod or wink to P-Town's hip residents and frequent visitors. Still, I did find that his descriptions of various places and scenes jived with my own memories (even though I've not been in more than a decade): the impenetrable mid-summer evening crowds around Town Hall; the midnight walks to the end of Macmillan Wharf, where "you will hear the boats creaking against the pilings"; the carnival atmosphere at the Spiritus pizza parlor after hours.The volume also reprints related poems by Melvin Dixon, Mark Doty, Alan Dugan, Marie Howe, Denis Johnson Michael Klein, and Robert Pinsky, but the real poetry is in Cunningham's evocative prose. If you're willing to accept this book simply as an ode to his adopted second home, then you're in for a treat.

Michaeal Cunningham loves Provincetown and conveys that love in every sentence in this beautifully written book about a great town. He ably does what every travel writer should do: he convinces those who have never been to Provincetown to visit and makes those who have been there want to return.Mr. Cunningham does a thorough job of describing the town's geography as well as both the famous artists who lived there in the past and those of the present, also the "town characters" one can run into on the busy streets on any summer day. There is also poems by Mark Doty, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky and Melvin Dixon, among others included throughout the book. Finally Mr. Cunningham discusses the effect AIDS has had on the gay population of Provincetown in a chapter called "Death and Life" and pays tribute to a friend named Billy who died from AIDS. "Provincetown has been widowed by the AIDS epidemic. It will never fully recover, though it is accustomed to loss. . . Provincetown possesses, has always possessed, a steady, grieving competence in the face of all that can happen to people. It watches and waits; it keeps the lights burning. If you are a man or woman with AIDS there, someone will always drive you to your doctor's appointments, get your groceries if you can't get them yourself, and take care of whatever needs taking care of."Is there any wonder why this writer loves Provincetown?

Brilliant atmospheric journey through Provincetown. A magical account of a magical place. Brought back memories of holidays past. Thank you.

This is a must-read for anyone who loves to visit Provincetown, as well as anyone who has not yet visited. It is a wonderful souvenir of the town, that has a charm unique to anywhere else. There is so much history in this town, and the author has a wonderful way of intertwining history lessons with descriptions of the town today. Put on your favourite soft music, and disappear into the town while reading this. You will long for your next trip, or your first.

Très beau texte. Même quand on n'y est jamais allé...

Livre excellent d'un très bon auteur.