Ptown - by Peter Manso (Paperback)

About the Book

Rich with anecdotes about famous and infamous residents (Norman Mailer, Tennessee Williams, Marlon Brando), "Ptown" is a lively, penetrating, and occasionally shocking look at Provincetown, Massachusetts, by writer Manso, who has lived there for much of his life. 16-page photo insert.

Book Synopsis

When you look back at its history, you can see a progression in Provincetown, things getting wilder and wilder, the outlaw element becoming the norm.... Provincetown, Cape Cod: This small Massachusetts enclave has long been home to pirates, commune-dwellers, artists, and other noble countrymen who value liberty over law -- from Norman Mailer and Tennessee Williams to John Waters, Robert Motherwell, and former congressman Gerry Studds. With one of the largest homosexual populations per capita of any town or city in the United States, and some of the highest beachfront real estate prices in the Northeast, Provincetown is a thriving tourist spot that attracts more than one million visitors each year. Here, acclaimed writer and longtime Ptown resident Peter Manso brings together all the celebrities and townsfolk, history and happenstance, and politics and gossip to offer an unparalleled account of this unconventional seaside society -- a place, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, where "one may stand...and put all of America behind him."

Review Quotes

Alex Beam The Boston Globe Provocative...eloquently written [and] in-your-face.

About the Author

Peter Manso is the author of the definitive biographies of Marlon Brando and Norman Mailer, as well as Ptown: Art, Sex, and Money on the Outer Cape, which was a #1 Boston Globe bestseller. His work has appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Vanity Fair, the Sunday Times of London, Paris Match, and many other publications.