Notes from the Night: A Life After Dark

"Knight Errant Taylor Plimpton has written a very funny, insightful, honest, wistful, and intensely personal book about his quest for the Holy Grail, which, as everyone knows, is almost certainly located deep in the heart of the New York night, just behind the next velvet rope. Notes from the Night should be required reading for anyone who has ever woken up with a hangover."---Jay Mcinerney

"An intimate remembrance of countless dazzling, empty Arabian nights of the New York club scene that begin at midnight and end at dawn. Zoo, tall, completely cool, and friendly, can talk his way in past the waiting lines, taking Taylor and, in the end, you with him. This clear-eyed, touching, irresistible account belongs somewhere in with Kerouac, Jay McInerney, and J.D. Salinger."---James Salter

"In Notes from the Night, Taylor Plimpton tells one of the great hunting tales. His prey is that rare, elusive, dangerous creature: fun. He captures it alive! But somehow the damn beast always manages to escape in the morning. The adventures herein will raise the hair on the back of your neck, not to mention the scotch in your hand. Taylor doesn't chase his quarry---as so many have---right over the edge of a cliff. But it's a near-run thing." --- P.J. O'Rourke

"Notes from the Night is a veritable field guide for the young who are drawn to velvet ropes and morning hangovers. This book is also filled with beautiful sentences, co-medic self-deprecation, a watchful eye, and a questioning heart." ---Jonathan Ames

Here in New York, a good night never ends. We will not let it. Though the bour is late, we are more awake than we have ever been in our lives, we are wild-eyed and grinning and dancing around like fools, and the music is thumping and the lights are flashing and the whole place is pulsating like a massive beating heart, and we do not want to go home, we do not want to go to sleep. Above all, we do not want to miss anything.

So begins Notes from the Night, Taylor Plimpton's account of a night out in New York City. Plimpton is part participant, part observer, a student and uniquely apt chronicler of human behavior---particularly at its most absurd

Accompanied by his best friend, Zoo, and a tight-knit band of other mischief-makers, and fueled by drinks, drugs, and big dreams, Plimpton journeys from one Manhattan hotspot to the next with boundless energy and an eye for the dark, often comic realities of club culture Exploring the myriad pleasures, mysteries, and pitfalls of that elusive world, Notes from the Night is guide to a place and a state of mind that has never been mapped.

Surrounded by celebrities, models, and the best of friends, the reader feels the rush of the party, the wonderful, heart-thumping panic of approaching a beautiful woman, and the often forgotten joy of simply having a good time. By relentlessly pursuing the truth of his own experience, Plimpton uncovers the sexy, and seamy, lining of the city that never sleeps, and in so doing exposes what at heart is sought by all those who leave their home well after dark---the singular thrill of being young and free and full of desire in a world where anything can happen.

Plimpton is both an unlikely clubber and a likely seeker---a little bumbling and somewhat aloof, often naive and unusually erudite. He's an insider who remembers what it was like to be an outsider, and from this unique perspective he invites you to experience the splendor, the sorrow, and the possibility of New York after hours. Lyrically written and vividly described, this brisk, surprising, and confident debut will stay with you long after the sun has risen

Taylor Plimption is a freelance writer and editor based in New York City. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Men's Journal, Dan's Papers, The Harvard Advocate, and The Rumpus.net. He is the co-editor of The Dreaded Feast: Writers on Enduring the Holidays, an anthology of dark holiday humor published in October 2009. He graduated with a degree in English from Reed College.