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In Search of the Pleasure Palace: Disreputable Travels
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.
250 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 10, 2019
Framed as a sentimental journey brought on by mid-life crisis (Almond was turning 40 as he wrote it), this travelogue is just what you'd expect from the fey pop phenomenon. It's witty, self-aware, a little philosophical, quietly wistful, and displays an unwholesome obsession with both the campier and the seedier side of life. Probably only appropriate for hardcore "Gutter Hearts."
December 3, 2015
This would have been a fairly unpleasant little book.....if it wasn't so damn amusing.
Basically it's Marc Almond taking on some of his sleazier haunts from his youth and comparing then to now...despite the fact he mentions things have calmed down in recent years in regard to many of the places as can't tourism takes hold there is still much in here that....Well.....shocks...
I did enjoy this however Almond is always engaging and as I mentioned...very..very funny....a fine read.
Basically it's Marc Almond taking on some of his sleazier haunts from his youth and comparing then to now...despite the fact he mentions things have calmed down in recent years in regard to many of the places as can't tourism takes hold there is still much in here that....Well.....shocks...
I did enjoy this however Almond is always engaging and as I mentioned...very..very funny....a fine read.
June 9, 2013
reading Marc Almond is like receiving a letter from a very amusing and catty friend who has a much more interesting life than you, but makes you feel welcome into theirs. Vicarious living with Marc is a fabulous experience, as long as you like a bit of sleazy sex, I recommend it, enthusiastically.
April 20, 2025
Marc Almond’s In Search of the Pleasure Palace is an idiosyncratic and deeply personal travelogue that blends cultural observation with memoir, charting a journey across cities and histories in pursuit of beauty, decadence, and the remnants of a vanishing romantic world. Best known as a singer-songwriter with a flair for the theatrical and melancholic, Almond brings that same sensibility to his writing—ornate, reflective, and often infused with a yearning for glamour that feels both earnest and knowingly nostalgic.
This is not a guidebook, nor even a conventional work of travel writing. Rather, it’s a series of sensual meditations on cities—Moscow, Berlin, Istanbul, Paris—filtered through the lens of a man obsessed with the decadent and the disreputable. Almond seeks out cabarets, crumbling palaces, cemeteries, and seedy cafés, places with stories etched into their facades and histories that linger in faded velvet and cigarette smoke. His gaze is trained not on landmarks, but on atmosphere.
What makes the book striking is how intimately entwined these places are with Almond’s personal mythos. He is not merely visiting these locales; he is communing with the ghosts of those who came before—Jean Genet, Klaus Nomi, Edith Piaf, and a host of other outsiders and luminaries of the demi-monde. The effect is often dreamlike, as if the act of travel becomes a way of collapsing time, allowing Almond to exist briefly in a world more stylish, more sensual, and more tragic than our own.
His prose can be florid—occasionally self-indulgent—but that’s part of the book’s charm. Almond writes not as a dispassionate observer but as a lover of artifice, glamour, and emotional excess. He does not hide his biases or preferences; instead, he leans into them, offering a portrait of a life lived in thrall to the magic of performance and the allure of places where the veneer is cracking but still glimmers.
There are, at times, limits to the book’s appeal. Readers looking for a structured narrative or objective analysis may find its hazy, impressionistic style frustrating. And yet, to read In Search of the Pleasure Palace is to accept Almond’s terms—a trip not through geography, but through sensibility.
Ultimately, it is a celebration of what remains when the glitter fades: memory, longing, and the enduring need to seek beauty in the overlooked and the once-glorious. Like Almond’s music, it is lush, theatrical, and unmistakably personal—a pleasure palace built from words.
This is not a guidebook, nor even a conventional work of travel writing. Rather, it’s a series of sensual meditations on cities—Moscow, Berlin, Istanbul, Paris—filtered through the lens of a man obsessed with the decadent and the disreputable. Almond seeks out cabarets, crumbling palaces, cemeteries, and seedy cafés, places with stories etched into their facades and histories that linger in faded velvet and cigarette smoke. His gaze is trained not on landmarks, but on atmosphere.
What makes the book striking is how intimately entwined these places are with Almond’s personal mythos. He is not merely visiting these locales; he is communing with the ghosts of those who came before—Jean Genet, Klaus Nomi, Edith Piaf, and a host of other outsiders and luminaries of the demi-monde. The effect is often dreamlike, as if the act of travel becomes a way of collapsing time, allowing Almond to exist briefly in a world more stylish, more sensual, and more tragic than our own.
His prose can be florid—occasionally self-indulgent—but that’s part of the book’s charm. Almond writes not as a dispassionate observer but as a lover of artifice, glamour, and emotional excess. He does not hide his biases or preferences; instead, he leans into them, offering a portrait of a life lived in thrall to the magic of performance and the allure of places where the veneer is cracking but still glimmers.
There are, at times, limits to the book’s appeal. Readers looking for a structured narrative or objective analysis may find its hazy, impressionistic style frustrating. And yet, to read In Search of the Pleasure Palace is to accept Almond’s terms—a trip not through geography, but through sensibility.
Ultimately, it is a celebration of what remains when the glitter fades: memory, longing, and the enduring need to seek beauty in the overlooked and the once-glorious. Like Almond’s music, it is lush, theatrical, and unmistakably personal—a pleasure palace built from words.
January 14, 2025
A very different travel journal than most, to say the least.
I’m presuming that anyone who ventures between the covers of this book will be a fan of Soft Cell & Marc Almond and therefore not be surprised by the contents. It’s a rare work of nostalgia twenty five years on from finding himself mixed into the heady world of fame and a somewhat sad jaunt back to the haunts of his younger self. Written and published in 2004, Marc travels back to places that captured a chapter of his life’s work and formed his legacy somewhat.
It’s wonderfully seedy, deliciously funny and definitely delights in reminiscing about a side of life most will not have seen or experienced.
I found myself very much back in the eighties reliving the freedom & hedonism of the music scene whilst I read this and maybe that’s where my sadness stems from rather than from the book…. It was a time of political instability, societal change and growth which shaped the music industry and gave us some of the best sounds of the century. I can’t help but wonder what has been happening since this book, for Marc, as he’s still performing, now another twenty years on. Is he still searching?
I’m presuming that anyone who ventures between the covers of this book will be a fan of Soft Cell & Marc Almond and therefore not be surprised by the contents. It’s a rare work of nostalgia twenty five years on from finding himself mixed into the heady world of fame and a somewhat sad jaunt back to the haunts of his younger self. Written and published in 2004, Marc travels back to places that captured a chapter of his life’s work and formed his legacy somewhat.
It’s wonderfully seedy, deliciously funny and definitely delights in reminiscing about a side of life most will not have seen or experienced.
I found myself very much back in the eighties reliving the freedom & hedonism of the music scene whilst I read this and maybe that’s where my sadness stems from rather than from the book…. It was a time of political instability, societal change and growth which shaped the music industry and gave us some of the best sounds of the century. I can’t help but wonder what has been happening since this book, for Marc, as he’s still performing, now another twenty years on. Is he still searching?
April 13, 2024
Thoroughly enjoyed the read on this one. I loved the reflections on many cities travelled and how those places may differ from today. This was written back in 2004 but it's still relevant reading. Witty, humourous and the writing is so easy to follow as well. I'm going to be looking into some of the poetry works now that I have read both this book and the autobiography, "Tainted life."
March 13, 2007
sigh... marc marc marc.. where to start with this one.. he seems to still view himself and his ideas as being more relevent than they are.. his poetry failed to captivate me.. when you see past his bragging it does give a travel guide like view of most of the main cities in america.. and europe.. for the 50 year old gay man.. and a run down of all the old gay clubs throughout the world as well.. not exactly relevent to my life.. but i loved his stories of decadence.. and in a vh1 remember this 80s kinda way.. found it a charming novelty..
January 5, 2008
A seedy, underbelly-ish good time--the sort that only Mr. Almond can bring.
July 14, 2012
Re-reading July 2012
October 7, 2015
Marc tells us about some of his favotite haunts and experiences in his fave cities, London, Paris, NY, LA, Barcelona, Moscow, Mexico City (??!!!)... lots o' fun for the Marc-fans among us...
November 29, 2013
Gloriously trashy!
July 13, 2014
It is very rare for me to laugh out loud when reading ... This book had me in stitches... Absolutely loved it!
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January 6, 2017An uneasy mix of travel guide, memoir and diary, Marc Almond’s second book was nearly the first book I finished this year, until I realised that its inciting non-incident was fear of an approaching 40th birthday and that felt a little too close to home. Still, for all my own grumpy tendencies, Almond at 39 seems much more inclined to moan about default middle-aged grump topics such as online porn, TV talent shows and Starbucks. His nightmares of turning into Ken Barlow from Coronation Street may be a little wide of the mark, but I was at times reminded of Leeds’ other, cosier contribution to the gay national icon stockpile, Alan Bennett. Or indeed of another Alan, Partridge, whose Nomad I began just as I was finishing this and which has more overlap than I suspect Almond would like to admit. Seriously, though, whenever Pleasure Palace does manage to sidestep the tourist traps and gentrification, and ends up in the sex parties or dens of debauchery Almond is supposedly seeking, you’re guaranteed a bathetic passage critiquing the décor. And really, the amount of awkward excuse-making and hurried leave-taking here is a lot higher than you’d expect, even knowing that Almond’s always been fussier and more voyeuristic, less active, than his songs and image might suggest. Still, I can’t help but feel I’d rather have read a book by that Almond avatar than the man himself. There are passages of utter beauty spotted here and there, but it’s as if he feels exposed typing them rather than belting them out, so the book always subsides soon after into that faintly generic, waspish queeniness which I’ve always found one of the less interesting gay modes – not least for the hypocrisy of accusing others of cattiness and bitchiness while embodying them oneself. And as often as it enables any interesting assessment ("Naturally all of us assume we are playing the lead in our lives, but in reality turn out to be bit-part players in someone else's drama. In my case though I think I got the lead part, of sorts, in something akin to a daytime soap.”) it will come across merely petty and bitter ("Fame, I've come to understand, is about the three following things: poverty, vanity and revenge.”). Some pop stars’ books could win over a non-fan; this one is more likely to put off even a devotee.
April 14, 2017
A candid, cutting and introspective collection of randomness that is well worth a read. Laying bare his own insecurities and fears for his life and his place in the world he then takes us on a journey to some surreal and entertaining places, whether it's in English suburbia for some swinging or chatting to a Russian singer or hitting some obscure underground clubs in Europe and the US you will never be bored and always entertained.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews