In Search of the Pleasure Palace: Disreputable Travels [Paperback]

Marc Almond (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2004

Once the days of his youth were over, singer-songwriter Marc Almond set out to pursue the same thrills, spills, and bellyaches that made each day of his youth memorable. In this volume, he is an observant guide to a world that he was once master of.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...an entertaining mix of personal reminiscences, sly jokes, and politically incorrect observations about life. -- Time Out --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Marc Almond is a singer, songwriter and performer. His work with Dave Ball as Soft Cell led to 10 million record sales, including a string of international hits including the classic 'Tainted Love' (which still holds the record for spending the most weeks in the US Top 100). As a solo artist Marc has recorded over nine albums.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan UK (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0283073136
• ISBN-13: 978-0283073137
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,268,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most fun book I've read in years, September 13, 2006

By 

Scott R. Lucado "I'm the other author named L... (Fort Worth, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Search of the Pleasure Palace: Disreputable Travels (Paperback)

I gotta tell you, I just fell in love with this book. Marc Almond, better known to Americans as half of the 80's group Soft Cell, whose one hit in the States was "Tainted Love", has really hit the nail on the head with this book.

I picked up the book as a lark; I'm not a Soft Cell groupie, I'm not gay, and I haven't read any of Almond's other books. But I'm sure glad I bought this.

It's simply tremendous. As Almond hits his mid-life crisis, he revisits places he'd been earlier (New York, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, etc.), and offers his insights into life and love, now seen through none-too-nostalgic eyes. He's an admirer of the bizarre and the tacky, and sure knows how to look for it, but I think to his own dismay, the general seediness of it affects him differently than he expected.

Still, it's an unflinching look at himself, reflected in his introspective observations (almost a Nietzschean "Wie man wird, was man ist" thing).

I find myself agreeing not so much with his experiences as his reactions to them. One of the things I find most enjoyable is how I can understand how he feels; being at a kind of mid-life crisis myself, I share his sense of emptiness and disappointment. (But at least I'm happily married, not a gay fading recovered-drug-addict pop star.)

Some parts of the book I can't relate to at all, especially his comments about gay-sex clubs, but I was a bachelor a long time, and I certainly had more than my share of empty experiences; when he writes in a what-was-I-thinking-then-and-what-are-these-people-thining-now mode, boy, do I know what he's talking about. And when it comes to the tedium and mediocrity all around us, well, the less said the better. I have laughed myself silly at some of the passages, winced at others, and overall found the book hypnotic; I can't put it down.

Anyway, it's funny, sad (when talking about sex in the media, he uses the phrase that "explicit has replaced erotic," which sums it up), and insightful. Most amazingly, it's never dull. I can't remember the last time I thought that about any book (except my own, of course).

Almond can't really write a coherent narrative to save his life, but he turns a clever phrase, and compared to the other stuff I've been reading lately (second-rate thrillers and sci-fi novels, all of which seem like they're written by a computer program, and I forget the instant I put them down) this is like Tolstoy.

Well, okay, not that good. But pretty damn good.