A24 is releasing a book chronicling Anthony Bourdain’s formative years in 1970s Provincetown
The hardcover collects recipes, maps, menus, artwork and never-before-seen images of Bourdain and his crew
It features an introduction by Tony director Matt Johnson, tying the book to A24’s biography on the chef
A24 is turning its attention to the making of a culinary icon with Happier, Stupider Times: Anthony Bourdain‘s Provincetown Years, a new hardcover. The book zeroes in on the years before the fame, when a young Bourdain arrived in 1970s Provincetown with ambitions of becoming a writer and no kitchen experience, and instead found the identity that would define the rest of his life.
The story the book tells is the foundational one. As Bourdain put it, “I learned every important lesson, all the most important lessons of my life, as a dishwasher,” and the project traces exactly that arc. It follows him from washing dishes into the orbit of what the book calls “the pirate elite,” the cooks, artists and partiers who ran the anything-goes summers of P-town. It is a sunwashed portrait of place and time, spanning the fishermen at the port, the local culinary traditions and the swashbuckling nightlife that shaped a formative chapter most fans know only in passing. Bourdain would go on to become a global figure through Kitchen Confidential and his television travelogues, which makes this early, pre-fame period a compelling piece of his mythology.
The release also connects directly to A24’s broader Bourdain project. The book carries an introduction by Matt Johnson, director of Tony, positioning the hardcover as a companion to A24’s biography on the chef. A24 has increasingly built out an ecosystem around its films through publishing, physical media and merchandise, and pairing a book with a documentary fits that pattern of extending a single subject across multiple formats. Here, the print project deepens the film’s portrait rather than simply echoing it, digging into the specific geography that made Bourdain who he was.
That intent shows in what fills the pages. Beyond the narrative, the book gathers rarely seen ephemera from iconic Provincetown establishments, including maps and menus, alongside artwork and photographs by the artists who actually lived there. It also folds in original recipes for local dishes like Portuguese kale soup and Cape Cod clam bakes, grounding the nostalgia in the food itself, plus never-before-seen images of Bourdain and his crew that pull the reader into his early world.
Happier, Stupider Times: Anthony Bourdain’s Provincetown Years is available to preorder now through the A24 Shop.
