Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown

Rating:
Summary: Old and New Cape Cod
Review: "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

Rating:
Summary: One Man's Love of Land's End!
Review: "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

Rating:
Summary: A Gay Man Walks...and walks...and (?)...in Provincetown
Review: I bought this book having read another book in the series about Nantucket, and having lived on the Cape for a good part of my life, I am always interested in adding another book on the Cape to my small collection. This book however is not so much about Provincetown, a town on Cape Cod, as it is a gay guy's experience of life in P-town. It begins well enough. Then the author shares with us that he prefers the company of men. Okay, do we really need to know? Well, apparently, because he goes on and on until he takes us into an almost surreal Breugel-esque night landscape of men languishing after men's love. One has the impression that beyond every dune, behind every door and around every corner there are men having sex- not just any men, but painfully beautiful men according to the author. On page 119, I learn that Provincetown is being "widowed by AIDS"- being a widow myself I wonder what the comparison is that he is making- will we be left with only the natural beauty of the Cape to comfort us? Will we be able to go to the beach without having to ask how to get to the heterosexual family beach? (Well, I did learn that much). One can only hope. I agree with another reviewer that the research is meager- the anecdotes uninteresting. What a disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: A Fine Book About a Fine Place
Review: 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?

Rating:
Summary: A lovely tour of a special piece of America
Review: Michael Cunningham graces one of his favorite places on earth, Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod's hook, with his wonderful, almost poetic prose. He takes us with him as he introduces us to the town's characters both past and present, to the beaches, the dunes, both ends of town, the nightspots, and everything in between.
A treat.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written piece
Review: Michael Cunningham's love for Provincetown soars in the beautiful prose of Land's End (A Walk in Provincetown). This short volume is the equivalent of a prose poem in tribute to an unique town. It has only two streets but what an amazing amount of humanity is crammed in there during the summer to be followed by the desolate quiet of winter. This book is perfect to curl up with on this snowy, cold New York day while one dreams back to one's own times in Provincetown in those warmer summer days of past and future. This town is perfect for a volume this size and, much like a weekend spent in Provincetown, I was sad to see it end but knew that I had not missed a thing in a such a small, yet perfect, town. Some may bemoan both the inclusiveness of this book (and Provincetown itself) but then this is not the town for them. A well-written, charming, highly recommended book.

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Summary: Describes P-town perfectly..and P-town blows, apparently
Review: Now I know how West Coasters feel: Cunningham talks over and over about the routine things that us East Coasters, and Northerners, have lived with for years. These things include the deadness of a town in winter, the hordes of tourists in the summer, the eccentricity brought on by the remoteness. I kept thinking, yeah, that's just New England in general, nothing unique to P-town.

I must say that all previous reviews are pretty much true: this book is impressionistic, too much so; has too much focus on the gay population of P-town; and it also describes New England coastal towns well, but in a way that will bore New Englanders.

At one point he writes that if a drag queen jumps onto your fender as you drive and begins singing a song to you, don't be offended, "you are being blessed." I will admit I'm hetero male, but what is the fascination with drag queens all about, anyway? On the same page he mentions getting to talking with friends at the 1 a.m. bar closing hour, and then suddenly he looks up and it's 3 a.m.! Again, he is perfectly describing the things that undoubtedly go on, but c'mon...3 a.m.? That's not late. At another section he writes of a sleeping man that he could be "chiseled from a slab of pink marble." No need to comment on that one.

So It's true that P-town is a place to be unconventional and eccentric, if by unconventional you mean you drink wine, never beer, and if by eccentric you mean bobo eccentric, not ethnically or artistically eccentric. Sadly, I guess P-town is only the latest in a line of resorts for the wealthy and the "I'm so outrageous!" crowd. It is not, apparently, some bohemian artist's community. So kudos to Cunningham for describing the place...now I will never go there!

Rating:
Summary: P-Town: An Impressionistic View
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Subtle yet delightful
Review: 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.