Ptown: Art, Sex and Money on the Outer Cape - Hardcover

Manso, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743200942 ISBN 13: 9780743200943

Publisher: Scribner, 2002

Synopsis

A portrait of Provincetown, Massachusetts, identifies the area as one of rich and diverse cultural history that houses one of the largest per capita homosexual populations and profiles some of its more famous and notorious residents, including Norman Mailer, Tennessee Williams, and Marlon Brando. 75,000 first printing.

About this title

From the Publisher

from KIRKUS REVIEWS:

"A well-defined and intelligent look at some of the characters--from colorful to determined to notorious--who have given texture and personality to Provincetown, Massachusetts.

'Existing in the liminal space where the eastern edge of America meets the Atlantic, Provincetown has remained throughout its history a haven for outsiders fleeing poverty and persecution,' writes Manso (BRANDO, 1994, etc.). Although he doesn't slight Provincetown as a geographical place, he appreciates that it's the people who have put Ptown on the map, and he has chosen a selection of them to capture the aura of the town: a Portuguese fisherman who managed to get caught for every (substantial) infraction, social and legal, he has committed; a woman preservationist whose work affords a glimpse into the workings of the town government; a police chief who kept the rule of law through a precarious balance of when to look and when not to; bar owners and drug smugglers; lost souls; and those who have found their true selves. The art community gets thorough coverage, starting back with the summer schools of art in the late-19th century through the time when the town served as home base for Abstract Expressionists, then Pop artists, and a whole gallimaufry of current painters. Some of Manso's most insightful material concerns the evolution of the gay community, from its birth to its polymorphous diversity, and particularly its politics, which have always perked strongly: laid-back, radical, progressive, commercial, correct, incorrect. Manso endeavors, and mostly succeeds, to give each voice a fair hearing, providing good doses of history, whether of the fishing industry, the tourist trade, or the extraordinary explosion in real estate values that has, in the past few years, utterly changed the face of the town and the composition of the population.

In a place that has always valued liberty over law, Manso has caught the intriguing angles that let him shed light on the heart of Ptown."

About the Author

Peter Manso has lived in Provincetown for most of his life, beginning in the early 1950s. He is the author of biographies of Norman Mailer and Marlon Brando, and his work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Vanity Fair, Premiere, and Paris Match.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743200942
• ISBN 13: 9780743200943
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352