Rating: 
Summary: Pass It By
Review: Poorly written, badly researched and apparently not even edited. A truly awful book about a fascinating place. Mr. Manso's feelings about the gay people in Provincetown is made abundantly clear, ad naseum. I wont rehash it here. Instead, he chooses to glamorize small time crooks, drug smugglers and adulterers as the heroes of his sordid little book. His chapters about Jay Critchley, a sort of mea culpa for the hatemongering that comes before and after, don't even begin to flesh out a human being, let alone a strong gay man. He manages to reduce the extraordinary down to the most common of stereotypes. Your best bet would be to get in your car, and head up Rt 6 to see for yourself. Since you're a visitor, it will only serve to drive Mr. Manso crazy. GOOD!
Rating:
Summary: Less than 1 Star
Review: This book is one of the worst I have had the misfortune of reading. It is loosely put together from a "pile" of essentially useless information, most of which comes from "conversations", rather than well researched documentation. The first chapter should have been the tipoff to quit reading. The description of the renovations to a house by a wealthy couple is so vapid, that I found myself wondering why they let the author use them in the book; and the relevance to the rest of the book is so obscure, that it is almost nonexistent. This book does a beautiful, historic town a grave disservice by presenting a skewed, smarmy overview of the lives of a very select group of people who live there. Definately a thumbs down book.
Rating:
Summary: Ugly and stupid
Review: This is a sloppy, lazy, badly written piece of work whose only purpose is to argue that Provincetown has been ruined by those awful homosexuals. Manso tries to cover himself with stories about Jay Critchley, but the real driving force of the book is his hatred of gay people. If you hate homosexuals, especially those with money, you might enjoy this book. Otherwise, I suggest that you skip it.
Rating: 
Summary: Joy to read
Review: This post-modernist hybrid is a joy to read. Part local history, part travelogue, part whodunit, the book shows how a politically and culturally fashionable pressure group was able to succeed where the Puritans failed: homogenize a town that was famous for its diversity.
Rating: 
Summary: Horribly written
Review: Yuck! I have a house in Ptown and thought some of the stories were interesting, however, the writing is terrible - as if a string of articles was strewn together to form a book. It does not portray gays in a positive light, but it also pokes at virtually every other "group" of people. Don't bother reading this.
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