On a mid-August night, amateur and published poets, locals and tourists, pour into the Somerset House Inn in downtown Provincetown and take seats on an array of couches and deep […]
Books & Poetry
BOOKS
Raising the Spirits of the Living and Dead
Adam Berry’s book on coping with grief
Adam Berry arrived in Provincetown 20 years ago as a Boston Conservatory sophomore to star in the Provincetown Theater Company’s production of Hair. An Alabama native, he didn’t know anything about […]
WORDS
Tyne and the Town
Emmy and Tony-winning actress Tyne Daly in three evenings of benefit readings
Tyne Daly might be best known to a certain generation of audiences for her costarring role as down-to-earth cop and working mom Mary Beth Lacey in the mid-1980s television show […]
BOOKS
Escaping Virginia: The Education of Drew Gilpin Faust
Harvard’s first woman president talks about her about-to-be-published memoir
“Dear Mr. Eisenhower, I am nine years old and I am white.” These were the opening words of a letter protesting racism in American public education that Catharine Drew Gilpin […]
DISMANTLING FATPHOBIA
Anastasia Kidd Preaches Fat Liberation
The author of Fat Church sees the industrial diet complex as a system of oppression
Anastasia Kidd’s new book, Fat Church: Claiming a Gospel of Fat Liberation, fearlessly tackles the American industrial diet complex and unravels the threads of structural fatphobia. With persuasive data and […]
FICTION
From Pakistan and Mexico to the Outer Cape
Novelist Marina Budhos brings asylum seekers from the global south to Wellfleet
You don’t expect a book about a teenage Pakistani asylum seeker, separated from her mother by the capriciousness of U. S. immigration authorities, and an unaccompanied refugee from gang violence […]
MEMOIR
Chasten Buttigieg Speaks Up for LGBTQ Youth
Mayor Pete’s husband makes a return trip to Provincetown
Chasten Buttigieg first visited Provincetown in July 2019 with his husband, Pete Buttigieg, then the mayor of South Bend, Ind. Pete was one of 23 candidates seeking the Democratic nomination […]
BOOKS
A Novel Set in a Year of Deep Anxiety
Adrienne Brodeur’s second book is a compelling Cape Cod family tale
Little Monsters delivers an elusive prize for those summering on the Cape: a book whose family drama is interwoven into the Cape’s microclimates, as inseparable from the landscape as mushrooms […]
BOOKS
On the Road With Richard LeBlond
In Homesick for Nowhere, the former Advocate columnist is a companionable guide
I’ve never been a fan of most travel writing. The older I get, the more comfortable my couch, the more set my ways, the more satisfied I am to stay […]
BOOKS
A Tall Ship and an Oscar-Winning Movie
Will Sofrin’s ocean adventure on the frigate of Master & Commander
When Will Sofrin called an ex-girlfriend after two decades to say he wanted to write his first book about a once-in-a-lifetime adventure they’d shared, it was awkward. She told him: […]
POETRY
Cynthia Bargar’s Poems Unearth Buried Stories
A memoir in poetry conjures the healing power of a familial haunting
Cynthia Bargar was writing short fiction when her friend, the poet Michael Burkard, urged her to turn toward poetry. “He would read my stories,” says Bargar, “and say, ‘Why aren’t […]
BOOKS
Steven Rowley Treasures Old Friends
In The Celebrants, the author explores the importance of having people ‘who knew you before’
Author Steven Rowley is having a moment and says he’s trying to fully appreciate the unexpected highs while hoping the other shoe won’t eventually drop. In April, Rowley won the […]
STORYTELLING
Connecting Provincetown’s Queer Past and Present
The Generations Project’s twin objectives: ‘anthologizing’ and forging an intergenerational community
PROVINCETOWN — Tens of thousands of people descend on this queer haven at land’s end every summer to eat, drink, and be merry with chosen family. Adam Golub, the creative […]
LINE BREAK
Winging Into Season
Melanie Braverman’s ‘Cusp’ celebrates a month of change
Parking lots in Provincetown are charging. The Dolphin Fleet is taking people out, and the ferries are already bringing the clack of roller bags down the pier and into town. […]
TRANSLATION
Liberating Kafka From the Myth of Kafka
Ross Benjamin’s translation of Kafka’s diaries is the first of its kind
EASTHAM — When the German-speaking Czech writer Franz Kafka died in 1924 from tuberculosis, he ordered his close friend and literary executor Max Brod to burn all his work. Brod, […]