Land's end: a walk through Provincetown

Provincetown, one of the most idiosyncratic and extraordinary towns in the United States, perched on the sandy tip at the end of Cape Cod, has been amenable and intriguing to outsiders for as long as it has existed. 'It is one of the places in the world you can disappear into. It is the Morocco of North America, the New Orleans of the north.'

Michael Cunningham first came to the place more than twenty years ago, falling in love with the haunted beauty of its seascape and the rambunctious charm of its denizens. As well as a summer mecca of stunning beaches, quirky shops, and wild nightlife, and a popular destination for gay men and lesbians, it is also a place of deep and enduring history, artistic and otherwise. Few towns have attracted such an impressive array of artists and writers - from Tennessee Williams to Eugene O'Neill, Mark Rothko to Robert Motherwell - who, like Cunningham, were attracted to this finger of land because it was...different. As we follow Cunningham on his various excursions through Provincetown and its surrounding landscape, we are drawn into its history, its mysteries, its peculiarities - places you won't read about in any conventional travel guide.