Black Sun [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Edward Abbey (Author), Paul Shay (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1989

BLACK SUN, a bittersweet love story, is about a forest ranger -- loner, iconclast, lover of the rugged life -- who falls for an utterly beguiling freckle-faced "American princess" half his age.

Like Lady Chatterley's lover, he initiates her into the rite of sex and the stark, hidden harmonies of his wild wooded kingdom and canyons. She, in turn, awakens in him the pleasures of loving and being loved. Then she disappears, plunging him into a gloom he can barely support.

"If the ending is sad and haunting, the book is not. It's a lyrical romance with the kind of passion and scenery that Abbey alone can conjure up." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

6 1-hour cassettes

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Books on Tape, Inc. (September 1, 1989)
• ISBN-10: 0736615865
• ISBN-13: 978-0736615860
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,618,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward Abbey was born in Home, Pennsylvania, in 1927. He was educated at the University of New Mexico and the University of Edinburgh. He died at his home in Oracle, Arizona, in 1989.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mystical and enchanting love story, October 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Sun (Paperback)

This is perhaps Abbey's most poetic, beautiful book--and it often reminds one of the sun slanting through trees in a forest. Poetically written and entrancing, on one level it's a memorial for Abbey's late wife and his heart-torn reaction to her death, on another level it's a struggle between hope and cynicism, and on another level it's a very moving, beautiful romance between a rough forest ranger and a young woman. It has plenty of nature and landscape observations evoking the pine forests of the west so that you'll feel as if you spent a long time visiting them when you finish this book. It's one long ode to the wilderness and to wild love, and I enjoyed it and was moved by it equally. It'll make you want to go outdoors. One warning--it has plenty of frank depictions of sexuality and also one extremely sexist character--but this is part of the novel, one theme it is exploring is true love as opposed to the typical cynical view of many people so anyone who can't seperate the author's POV from his character's could be offended--but I found the whole thing deliriously beautiful. A sensuous, special book you can read many times over--or maybe once in your life, you'll remember it forever.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars clunky, but enjoyable read, January 27, 2006

By 

Greg A. Locascio (DeKalb, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Sun (Paperback)

I tore through "Black Sun" in a couple days. I find Abbey's dialogue, both here and in his more famous "Monkey Wrench Gang," to be a bit clunky, but his nature descriptions are spot on.

The main character, Gatlin, is a ranger who works alone on a fire lookout tower in some unnamed western locale (though by the clues given it seems to be somewhere near the Grand Canyon). Gatlin's crisis: Can he leave nature for the love of a woman? For anyone enthralled by wild places, adventure, travel, or any other pursuit that supersedes relationships, this dilemma is remarkably prescient.

Readers looking for the curmudgeonly environmental polemicist Abbey in "Black Sun" will be disappointed. Readers can expect an easy read, beautiful nature descriptions, and a simple, tragic, poetically elegaic love story. Abbey never was very good at portraying the human condition. He regarded our species as a scourge on the landscape. But "Black Sun" is the most human book he ever wrote.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wilderness and Loneliness, July 21, 2005

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Black Sun: A Novel (Paperback)

This is probably Edward Abbey's least political work, and the cranky old desert conservationist came up with a surprisingly emotional and bittersweet love story. The main character has escaped his painful past by taking up a very lonely job at a fire tower near the Grand Canyon, getting closer to nature and further from other people, as a way to battle his demons. He then unexpectedly falls in love with a younger woman who is working at the park, but can't figure out how to make her part of his lonely existence, which may or may not be bringing him true happiness. But in the end, he has loneliness forced upon him again anyway, as the girl disappears back into nature herself. One problem with this novel is the stilted interpersonal dialogue, which was never Abbey's strength, while he was even less adept at building a believable romance. But on the good side, this novel, based to an unclear degree on Abbey's true experiences, is a remarkably emotional exploration of the true loneliness that can be found when one communes with nature for the long haul, and how this loneliness can both lift and crush one's spirits. [~doomsdayer520~]