Customer Reviews

In a Place Like No Other

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
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Totally enjoyed this book. Brought back wonderful memories of the 70's and a beautiful area we used to visit.

Ed brought the characters and the area alive, made them easy to relate to.

Can't wait for the next book!

What a "wicked good" book! I realize it claims to be fiction... I understand that the chain of events, the characters, the costumes at the Beaux Arts Ball all seem a little too far-fetched and off the wall. But trust me, stuff like that happens around here! Donna's fashion reviews from her favorite barstool are accurate and on the money. The Les Moor/Bobby Crosby's surprize us around here all the time. (And the written local accent - 'spoken' more authentically than the ones from "A Perfect Storm" The Movie.)
From his perch high atop his 'fictious' Banner Hill, Ed has colored everyone just as vividly in his book as they truly appear on the Neck...and in his paintings. Cannot overlook the nod to our favorite dog, either - only a Labrador would put up with people like this, in a place like no other.

Great fictional book about Rocky Neck! (Even though I've heard from locals that it's not so fictional!) If you have ever been to Gloucester, MA you have to read this book!

Amongst other things this novel is a love letter to Gloucester, MA, its people, its architecture, its world old and new. It's also about the layering of lives and stories that make up history, the accretions of time and of the imagination. Frank brings a unsettled life with him when he comes to the Gloucester of the 1970s, memories of a dead friend and a failed relationship, and builds something more solid amid the many colourful characters who frequent the restaurants and bars along the waterfront. New friends and loved ones are found and old friends and loves are reassessed. All is not how it seems at first. This is a rich novel and an enjoyable one. Buy it!

I lived in Magnolia, MA in the '70s and this brings back wonderful memories. One of the things I really loved about this book was the way Touchette used words so effectively to paint many vivid pictures of Gloucester.He is an exceptional artist and now it seems is also making his mark as an author.
A great love of architecture is obvious in the way he describes neighborhoods, buildings, houses. Touchette has also eloquently captured the rhythm of life which has always made Gloucester, indeed all of Cape Ann, a very unique experience.
Couldn't wait to see what happened next.

Although this story is set in Gloucester MA, it could have been any place during the seventies. It brought me back to my days in Newport during that time.

This is a quick read and a most enjoyable book, especially for Boomers.

Touchette's novel is really a book-length yarn. It's a story that keeps you turning the pages--never at all sure where this thing is going and what shape you or the characters will be in when you get there.

It seems a like a fantasy cum autobiography. Certainly nothing like this ever happens to real people, but parts of this tale have happened to lots of baby boomers who found places like Gloucester to hang out and wait for things to cool off. Instead things got wierd--locally strange. College friendships faded while new friends emerged with all kinds of bizarre experiences to share. The bucolic pleasures of higher education dissolved and a new "grown-up" reality materialized. Everything seemed "relevant." Real things were happening and it was all so much more up close and personal, more vivid than anything in the past. Things just like you read about happened all around you.

And then it was gone. The adventures, exciting as they were in that context, ended in a work-a-day world. Careers and families forced us to stop believing in all that wild and crazy stuff. What happened? I'm not sure. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention to what I did for 25 years. Touchette certainly did. I'm glad at least someone sat back and tried to remember how crazy that life seemed and wrote it down.

If there are some parts missing from your puzzle of the 70's--parts you know you had but cannot quite put your hands on, *In a Place Like No Other* may help you find them or more interesting replacement parts that may add a little color to that puzzle before it fades completely. It's a colorful yarn told in an exagerated style--definitely worth a weekend to unravel.