Debra Lawless Knihy

Author Debra Lawless completes the history of the charming seaside community of Provincetown, Massachusetts, from the menace of World War II U-boats just offshore to the celebratory destination it has become today. The creative mecca boomed in peacetime with a new generation of artists and writers, including Tennessee Williams, Robert Motherwell and Norman Mailer. Andy Warhol paid for a carton of cigarettes with a signed soup can, while director John Waters wrote six screenplays here. The AIDS crisis of the 1980s and '90s had a grave impact on Provincetown, but the community cared for the sick, supported the suffering and only grew stronger. Once defined by tensions, Provincetown has become one of the country's most vibrant and welcoming gay communities. Explore the artistic paradise and the characters who make up the carnival of life in Provincetown.

Between the Portland Gale of 1898 and the start of the Second World War, Provincetown, Massachusetts, was transformed from a rough-and-tumble whaling and fishing village into an anything-goes destination for free-loving artists and tourists. When the Great War curtailed European travel, droves of artists flocked to the town. Among those who came to land's end were painter Charles W. Hawthorne, who launched the nation's oldest artists' colony, and playwright Eugene O'Neill, whose premier play was produced by the fledgling Provincetown Players. Historian Debra Lawless chronicles the history of the town with tales of hearty sailors from Theodore Roosevelt's Atlantic Fleet, Prohibition-era bootleggers, Portuguese fishermen and a "madman" firebug intent on burning down the town during the Great Depression. Explore the quirky yet enchanting streets of Provincetown.