Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown

Michael Cunningham is one of the most talented prose writers of modern America. He is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award; he is the author of bestsellers “The Hours,” “A Home at the End of the World,” “Selected Days,” and “Flesh and Blood.” “The End of the Earth” is the writer’s only nonfiction book. It is devoted to Provincetown—a city on the Cape Cod peninsula that became, in the mid-20th century, a bohemian and tourist center of the East Coast. Cunningham himself arrived on Cape Cod in the eighties and has returned there often since.

In his book, he travels through his favorite places, telling about ordinary residents of Provincetown and about the celebrities who lived there. Provincetown is, quite literally, the end of the earth: beyond it is the Atlantic Ocean. In summer, the town is full of tourists of all kinds, and during the long winter you have to make an effort not to go crazy from loneliness.

“The End of the Earth” is a collection of short stories and essays describing this city from every possible angle and in all of its manifestations: from souvenir shops and seaside restaurants to the completely unbelievable store “Sea Odds and Ends” and the oldest “Adams Pharmacy” in the city. Pretending to be a guidebook, this audiobook invites you to stroll along the thin strip of land that separates human civilization from the boundless, unknown ocean—rest in the city that could have been Heaven if Heaven were possible on Earth.