Notes from the Night: A Life After Dark

By Taylor Plimpton

Here in New York, a good night never ends. We will not let it. Though the hour is late, we are more awake than we have ever been in our lives, we are wild-eyed and grinning and dancing around like... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307716228
• ISBN13: 9780307716224
• Release Date: July 2010
• Publisher: Crown Archetype
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 0.8" x 5.7"

Customer Reviews

I'll Drink To That

This is book is wholly original as a memoir. In fact, it's much less a traditional memoir and more like a very personal meditation on a theme. The author's use one long night--peppered with digressions and reflections on past nights, people, places, himself--is a fantastic construction. it gives the Notes From the Night a compelling narrative energy. Reading it, one very authentically feels like they are joining Plimpton on this journey into the night, through countless rounds of drinks and a few harrowing moments of existential crisis. Taylor Plimpton writes with admirable honesty, considerable humor, great curiosity and unflagging energy. This book is not just about the pursuit of a good time, there is a sense of a profound search for meaning behind it.

honesty is the best policy

After I picked up Notes From The Night, whenever I had to go do something else, I couldn't wait to get back to this book. Even though the night scene is not mine, the author's candor on so many subjects make it fascinating reading. What makes the male animal tick? Many of the answers can be found here. It is a veritable treasure trove of male trade secrets, happy revelations. They are alot like us females, in fact they quite adore us. Taylor is honest and meditates on the ways of life. He invites us into his world and shares his intimacy of spirit with a warm, flowing golden voice. Here are shades of Zen, interpreted by love. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Great quick read

I thought this was a great book. I really like the voice - it's very honest and open. He lets us in on a world that is extremely personal, wonderfully descriptive and funny. While I was never a big clubber I definitely can relate to the aspects of going out that are universal - like the neverending hangovers, the good times with the best of friends, and the search for love (or at least a date). We've all wondered why do we do this to ourselves and finally someone has some answers.

A Love Letter For The Nocturnal

I'll be honest, the first time I was offered a chance to read an advance copy of this book I turned it down. It seemed a bit hyped, I felt burned out on the memoir scene, I had to wash my hair. Yet something made me come back for a second look. When I did, I saw it had one lonely review. And curse words. A terrible book about the nightlife in New York with curse words and bodice ripping? Oh, sign me up. The only thing I love more than a good book is a truly awful one. I was so disappointed! Notes from the Night: A Life After Dark isn't an awful book. It's perfection slipped into a few hundred pages. I'm telling you, I could smell the beer from the crushed cups on the dance floor as I closed the covers. Taylor Plimpton has captured the essence of a scene and held it up to the light for everyone to enjoy. It's not my scene, it's not even from the point of view of my gender, but it's so pitch perfect in the details that I recognize it. I want to leave the kids sleeping, put a note on the pillow for the spouse, and head out into the night right now. Notes from the Night has perfectly captured the elusive something that makes the nocturnal animals slide through the bright lights and dark alleys in search of the moment where everything falls perfectly into place and we belong. The moment where the too tight jacket loosens, the too loud crowd softens, where the feeling of the evening picks you up and takes you somewhere you can't go alone. You're a surfer and the evening is the perfect wave. Nothing happens in Notes from the Night. It's not an epic adventure tale with beautiful people ruining their lives and a brave hero escaping to tell the tale. Plimpton is offering a look at his world through his eyes - why he loves it, what the rules are, what they aren't. It's as beautiful a description of what draws us out as I've ever read. There's a group I meet up with from time to time that call themselves The Unified Scene. This is their book, and for the time you spend reading it, it's your scene too. Most books about club life are about the nights where it all goes wrong, the nights that your parents warned you about. Plimpton is talking about all the others - the nights where the only thing that really happens is you're alive.