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The Gates of the Sun
Outlaw, rancher, lover, father ----- this powerful portrait of a fiercely independent cowboy brings alive the vastness of the prairie life in Canada.
The Gates of the Sun is the first of a loosely-connected trilogy of novels about rural life. It is followed by Luna and The Fourth Archangel.
The Gates of the Sun is the first of a loosely-connected trilogy of novels about rural life. It is followed by Luna and The Fourth Archangel.
- GenresCanada
342 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
23 people want to read
About the author
Sharon Butala
65 books59 followersSharon Butala (born Sharon Annette LeBlanc, August 24, 1940 in Nipawin, Saskatchewan) is a Canadian writer and novelist.
Her first book, Country of the Heart, was published in 1984 and won the Books in Canada First Novel Award.
As head of the Eastend Arts Council she spearheaded the creation of the Wallace Stegner House Residence for Artists in which Wallace Stegner's childhood home was turned into a retreat for writers and artists.[14]
She lived in Eastend until Peter's death in 2007. She now lives in Calgary, Alberta.
She was shortlisted for the Governor General's award twice, once for fiction for Queen of the Headaches, and once for nonfiction for The Perfection of the Morning.
The Fall 2012 issue of Prairie Fire, entitled The Visionary Art of Sharon Butala was dedicated to Butala and her work and influence.
(from Wikipedia)
Her first book, Country of the Heart, was published in 1984 and won the Books in Canada First Novel Award.
As head of the Eastend Arts Council she spearheaded the creation of the Wallace Stegner House Residence for Artists in which Wallace Stegner's childhood home was turned into a retreat for writers and artists.[14]
She lived in Eastend until Peter's death in 2007. She now lives in Calgary, Alberta.
She was shortlisted for the Governor General's award twice, once for fiction for Queen of the Headaches, and once for nonfiction for The Perfection of the Morning.
The Fall 2012 issue of Prairie Fire, entitled The Visionary Art of Sharon Butala was dedicated to Butala and her work and influence.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 5, 2025
In my opinion this book is a masterpiece of Canadian literature. It is lush in detailed description and stellar character work. The story follows a cowboy, Andrew through his life on the Canadian prairie in all its trials and tribulations. I thought it was expertly told and very moving.
I cannot understand why Sharon Butala has not been lifted as high as Carol Shields or Margaret Laurence as she is just as good - if not better.
This book gets 5 stars from me and Ms. Butala is now one of my favourite authors.
I cannot understand why Sharon Butala has not been lifted as high as Carol Shields or Margaret Laurence as she is just as good - if not better.
This book gets 5 stars from me and Ms. Butala is now one of my favourite authors.
November 30, 2016
I don't review books much, as it seems as if everything has been said. But I'm astounded at how little has been said about this book in this forum, so ...
In my view, if Sharon Butala were Steve Butala, this novel would be as widely recognized and celebrated as anything by Wallace Stegner. It is beautiful and a tour de force.
The harshness of life in the time and place of which she writes so sparely and clearly is breathtaking. First Andrew, who grows from boyhood to old age here, nearly freezes to death. Then he nearly freezes to death again. Neighbours die because someone at the store forgot to put the matches in the wagon. Then everyone is baking in the relentless sun and the cattle and horses are dying of drought. If that sounds depressing, it is, but it is the kind of depressing that made me grateful to my bones for the comfort of my life. And it reminded me, too, that to judge those that came before us is wildly inappropriate given we know so little about the struggles and necessary compromises that kept them alive. Or not.
Fatherhood and family life don't bring Andrew as much comfort as he expects, and that is no accident. His wife and children suffer the brunt of the many defence mechanisms that kept him alive in an uninhabitable environment, including a relentless work ethic. He focuses on teaching his children how to survive and appreciate the unforgiving integrity of the wild world, and his son hates him for his harshness and inflexibility. His daughters never come to know him, or he them. His wife gets heavier and heavier and dies, probably of too little comfort and too many swallowed words. Yet there is a lot of love here, and anyone that comes from the prairies or from a prairie family will recognize the tense silences and the tattered and broken relationships amid such good intentions.
But Andrew does find comfort. Ultimately, his most endearing relationship, the love of his life, is the southern Saskatchewan grassland. In them, eventually, he retires into a solitude that includes all of nature, and is not lonely. The connection he feels to the beauty of the wild world is one that many would recognize - there is an Andrew in each of us that is too much in the civilized world, stumbling through imperfect human connections when what we really long for is the long quiet stillness of a landscape that doesn't know people.
An amazing read. I'm only sorry it took me so long to find it.
In my view, if Sharon Butala were Steve Butala, this novel would be as widely recognized and celebrated as anything by Wallace Stegner. It is beautiful and a tour de force.
The harshness of life in the time and place of which she writes so sparely and clearly is breathtaking. First Andrew, who grows from boyhood to old age here, nearly freezes to death. Then he nearly freezes to death again. Neighbours die because someone at the store forgot to put the matches in the wagon. Then everyone is baking in the relentless sun and the cattle and horses are dying of drought. If that sounds depressing, it is, but it is the kind of depressing that made me grateful to my bones for the comfort of my life. And it reminded me, too, that to judge those that came before us is wildly inappropriate given we know so little about the struggles and necessary compromises that kept them alive. Or not.
Fatherhood and family life don't bring Andrew as much comfort as he expects, and that is no accident. His wife and children suffer the brunt of the many defence mechanisms that kept him alive in an uninhabitable environment, including a relentless work ethic. He focuses on teaching his children how to survive and appreciate the unforgiving integrity of the wild world, and his son hates him for his harshness and inflexibility. His daughters never come to know him, or he them. His wife gets heavier and heavier and dies, probably of too little comfort and too many swallowed words. Yet there is a lot of love here, and anyone that comes from the prairies or from a prairie family will recognize the tense silences and the tattered and broken relationships amid such good intentions.
But Andrew does find comfort. Ultimately, his most endearing relationship, the love of his life, is the southern Saskatchewan grassland. In them, eventually, he retires into a solitude that includes all of nature, and is not lonely. The connection he feels to the beauty of the wild world is one that many would recognize - there is an Andrew in each of us that is too much in the civilized world, stumbling through imperfect human connections when what we really long for is the long quiet stillness of a landscape that doesn't know people.
An amazing read. I'm only sorry it took me so long to find it.
August 1, 2016
Spoilers - This is the first novel in a trilogy (someone had given me the 3rd so...) & I could see glimmers in it of Butala's memoir of her life on the prairies. I actually found it a quite sad novel - it follows the life of a young boy, living with his widowed mother, a hardscrabble life on the drought-ridden prairies. He grows up, toughens up, leads a criminal existence for awhile & after a stint in jail marries a woman who has stood by him. They raise a bunch of kids on his mother's homestead but he is often disappointed in his children, his love seems to wane for his wife as her body thickens & her life is taken up with child-reading, & he really does not seem to get much happiness out of life. I look forward to see where the next novel in the trilogy will take me.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews