audiobooks

"A Walk Through Provincetown" is not your typical travel guide. Cunningham was invited to contribute to a series of travel books and this is his unique and inspiring contribution. It's a one man journey across a town that he first came to over twenty years ago. Cunningham has given us an interesting combination of historical facts and personal reflections. He describes Provincetown's cultural interests, its shops, bars, street life, heritage, gay cruising areas, and its historical sites.

Cunningham presents a very personal view of Provincetown, one that is filled with wonder, joy, and a deep love of this town. He always writes beautifully, and this book includes poems and prose passages from many of Provincetown's other distinguished writers. This book is a pleasure to read for anyone who cares about this very special place, and for those not familiar with the town, a way to learn about it from someone who cares. This is an elegant personal tour of a town that has always been rich in diversity. Hopefully, it will remain that way for this generation and generations to come. Cunningham has made a great contribution in furthering that goal. A wonderful book!

Joe Hanssen

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.

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?