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Black Sun
The timeless novel that chronicles a reckless romance in the wilderness, from Edward Abbey, one of America’s foremost defenders of the natural environment. Black Sun is a bittersweet love story involving an iconoclastic forest ranger and a freckle-faced “American princess” half his age. Like Lady Chatterley’s lover, he initiates her into the rites of sex and the stark, secret harmonies of his wilderness kingdom. She, in turn, awakens in him the pleasure of love. Then she mysteriously disappears, plunging him into desolation. Black Sun is a singular novel in Abbey’s repertoire, a romantic story of a solitary man’s passion for the outdoors and for a woman who is his wilderness muse. “Like most honest novels, Black Sun is partly autobiographical, mostly invention, and entirely true. The voice that speaks in this book is the passionate voice of the forest,” Abbey writes, “the madness of desire, and the joy of love, and the anguish of final loss.”
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
112 people are currently reading
1044 people want to read
About the author
Edward Abbey
77 books2,073 followersEdward Paul Abbey (1927–1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views.
Abbey attended college in New Mexico and then worked as a park ranger and fire lookout for the National Park Service in the Southwest. It was during this time that he developed the relationship with the area’s environment that influenced his writing. During his service, he was in close proximity to the ruins of ancient Native American cultures and saw the expansion and destruction of modern civilization.
His love for nature and extreme distrust of the industrial world influenced much of his work and helped garner a cult following.
Abbey died on March 14, 1989, due to complications from surgery. He was buried as he had requested: in a sleeping bag—no embalming fluid, no casket. His body was secretly interred in an unmarked grave in southern Arizona.
Abbey attended college in New Mexico and then worked as a park ranger and fire lookout for the National Park Service in the Southwest. It was during this time that he developed the relationship with the area’s environment that influenced his writing. During his service, he was in close proximity to the ruins of ancient Native American cultures and saw the expansion and destruction of modern civilization.
His love for nature and extreme distrust of the industrial world influenced much of his work and helped garner a cult following.
Abbey died on March 14, 1989, due to complications from surgery. He was buried as he had requested: in a sleeping bag—no embalming fluid, no casket. His body was secretly interred in an unmarked grave in southern Arizona.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 163 reviews
March 24, 2008
This is a story about a dirty old man who lives in the woods. A very bright and psychologically healthy all-American girl attacks him out of nowhere and he has no choice but to fall in love with her. This is very easy because she is 19, has no discernible flaws except for slightly uneven teeth and goes hiking in little Catholic school girl skirts.
She disappears and then the main character who has many things in common with the novelist gets to experience many tragically romantic and romantically tragic emotions.
If there is a scrap of reality in this book it is that Abbey recognizes here that love is not a thing you ever really control or choose. It is another inhuman force of nature, similar to a flash flood.
A lyrical extended sexual fantasy from a great nature writer.
She disappears and then the main character who has many things in common with the novelist gets to experience many tragically romantic and romantically tragic emotions.
If there is a scrap of reality in this book it is that Abbey recognizes here that love is not a thing you ever really control or choose. It is another inhuman force of nature, similar to a flash flood.
A lyrical extended sexual fantasy from a great nature writer.
April 8, 2016
This book is going to be difficult for me to review. There are pieces of it Abbey could have done without (entire characters, in fact), and there are pieces that are simply stunning. Black Sun is apparently Abbey's personal favorite of all his books, and I get that. It's also one of his books that critics and readers (and critical readers) didn't dig, or didn't understand, or didn't care to in either regard, and I get that, too.
A month later and I can tell it'll be one that sticks to my bones for quite some time. It's definitely one I plan to revisit in future years, to see if it's as vivid and as meaningful as I remember it wanting to be.
The sheer desperation and sorrow in the last chapters: I know what that feels like, and Abbey wrote it so well. So well I could feel those memories once again welling behind my own eyes.
[Four stars for the beauty, and the mystery, and for it likely being his most authentic story.]
A month later and I can tell it'll be one that sticks to my bones for quite some time. It's definitely one I plan to revisit in future years, to see if it's as vivid and as meaningful as I remember it wanting to be.
The sheer desperation and sorrow in the last chapters: I know what that feels like, and Abbey wrote it so well. So well I could feel those memories once again welling behind my own eyes.
[Four stars for the beauty, and the mystery, and for it likely being his most authentic story.]
September 3, 2012
I have been a fan of Edward Abbey since I read The Monkey Wrench Gang in college. I enjoyed Black Sun because it showed a different side of Abbey and frankly it reveals a truth about male experience that men hide about themselves until they are long married--that truth being that they become profoundly attached to their woman partner and losing her can have catastrophic consequences for a man.
Several reviewers have dubbed the main character a "dirty old man." How can Will be that at the age of 37? I understand that Sandy was 19, but she was by all means a consenting adult. In my mind a dirty old man is over 70.
Although this is not the typical Abbey book with political ranting and raving it still contains the gorgeous depictions of nature that he is known for. It also contains the--via the character Ballentine--the crude and dated attitudes about women, commitment and sexuality that also find their way into Abbey's books which modern readers might find annoying. I try to put these things in perspective and remember that the early 70's were a very different time and attitudes were different.
Several reviewers have dubbed the main character a "dirty old man." How can Will be that at the age of 37? I understand that Sandy was 19, but she was by all means a consenting adult. In my mind a dirty old man is over 70.
Although this is not the typical Abbey book with political ranting and raving it still contains the gorgeous depictions of nature that he is known for. It also contains the--via the character Ballentine--the crude and dated attitudes about women, commitment and sexuality that also find their way into Abbey's books which modern readers might find annoying. I try to put these things in perspective and remember that the early 70's were a very different time and attitudes were different.
November 18, 2012
Will Gaitlin is a stone cold stoic, a self-critical ex-teacher who has practically gone feral. His sole responsibility is a big one, spotting smoke or forest fires from a tower, but it requires minimal human contact. He lets us in on scant information from his past. He’s more interested in the deer in the woods and the shadows.
Art Ballantine, who thinks nature is where you throw your beer cans, wants Gaitlin to come back to civilization before he dies. But Will Gaitlin isn't going anywhere. Gaitlin knows it, we know it. These two are an unlikely pair, but their exchanges are very funny. Ballantine’s gruff and macho letters to Gaitlin form a kind of comic relief to this brief novel.
A young woman enters the picture and Will Gaitlin is transfixed and transformed, albeit in his deeply cool way. Sandy, with the sweater and the kilt and sipping Cokes through a straw. While Will is certain of his physical yearnings (there is a bit of raunch and sex in this book), he’s reluctant to open up. He fears committing to a version of events.
“Admiring the span and arch of her brown eyebrows, the subtle blue shading of her eyelids, her fresh translucent skin, the pulse at the bottom of her throat. Told her not the whole story, of course, but an outline of it, a diagram. The words as always so poor an imitation of the reality; not even in fact an imitation at all but a different reality, making what little he remembered of his life something apart and separate, in a different world.”
Sandy slips away. Gaitlin’s search for her is beautiful, haunting, heartfelt. It’s desperate but also, somehow, not. The search in the blazing heat is for her—but also for himself. Looking for her is an “act of insanity” in the vast desert and canyons, but he can’t imagine doing anything else.
Gaitlin is out in here in the desert in part, we learn, because as a teacher he had learned how much he didn’t know. This is the real emptiness Gaitlin feels, that ever-present sense of how much else is out there. Things he doesn’t know.
The writing is beautiful, as spare and clean as the landscape. Abbey said he wrote this book in hopes to capture “that sound the wind makes wailing through the wailing pines.”
"Black Sun" is an elegant but brisk novel and it makes us feel like we can see things too, deep down in the shadows.
Art Ballantine, who thinks nature is where you throw your beer cans, wants Gaitlin to come back to civilization before he dies. But Will Gaitlin isn't going anywhere. Gaitlin knows it, we know it. These two are an unlikely pair, but their exchanges are very funny. Ballantine’s gruff and macho letters to Gaitlin form a kind of comic relief to this brief novel.
A young woman enters the picture and Will Gaitlin is transfixed and transformed, albeit in his deeply cool way. Sandy, with the sweater and the kilt and sipping Cokes through a straw. While Will is certain of his physical yearnings (there is a bit of raunch and sex in this book), he’s reluctant to open up. He fears committing to a version of events.
“Admiring the span and arch of her brown eyebrows, the subtle blue shading of her eyelids, her fresh translucent skin, the pulse at the bottom of her throat. Told her not the whole story, of course, but an outline of it, a diagram. The words as always so poor an imitation of the reality; not even in fact an imitation at all but a different reality, making what little he remembered of his life something apart and separate, in a different world.”
Sandy slips away. Gaitlin’s search for her is beautiful, haunting, heartfelt. It’s desperate but also, somehow, not. The search in the blazing heat is for her—but also for himself. Looking for her is an “act of insanity” in the vast desert and canyons, but he can’t imagine doing anything else.
Gaitlin is out in here in the desert in part, we learn, because as a teacher he had learned how much he didn’t know. This is the real emptiness Gaitlin feels, that ever-present sense of how much else is out there. Things he doesn’t know.
The writing is beautiful, as spare and clean as the landscape. Abbey said he wrote this book in hopes to capture “that sound the wind makes wailing through the wailing pines.”
"Black Sun" is an elegant but brisk novel and it makes us feel like we can see things too, deep down in the shadows.
August 1, 2018
Reading Challenge: A book with a color in the title.
I had to skim through to get to the end. First Abbey book I read, should have probably started with one of his more well-known classics because I did not enjoy this sexualized male fantasy of living in the woods and banging a girl 20 years younger than you. 🤷🏼♀️
I had to skim through to get to the end. First Abbey book I read, should have probably started with one of his more well-known classics because I did not enjoy this sexualized male fantasy of living in the woods and banging a girl 20 years younger than you. 🤷🏼♀️
November 10, 2009
Meh. Not much more than an extended MALE sexual fantasy. Guy lives alone in beautiful woods, cooks breakfast while watching the deer. Nubile 19 year old maiden shows up. They have sex all over the place. He is apparently in love, but will not give her any commitment. He stands in rugged, manly contrast to her smarmy, brutish, prep-schoolish fiance. Way too explicit in parts to recommend.
But it is Edward Abbey, who is funny and can write nature like no one else.
Note that I thought the love story in The Journey Home was quite lovely, which is similar in some respects but different in that he marries the girl and she is more substantial.
But it is Edward Abbey, who is funny and can write nature like no one else.
Note that I thought the love story in The Journey Home was quite lovely, which is similar in some respects but different in that he marries the girl and she is more substantial.
February 15, 2010
After finishing this book, I read through some of the reviews of this and other of Abbey's books. Quite fascinating to me. It certainly appears you either love Abbey or you hate him. Not much in between.
Black Sun is classic Abbey and I enjoyed it immensely (although The Fool's Progress remains my favorite of Abbey's 'fiction'). Yes, he can be crass and vulgar. But the book is as honest as it is beautiful. It's a book of love plain and simple. Love for a girl. Love for the desert and the forests. Love for solitude. Almost every page had a line, a sentence, a passage that I wanted to underline or highlight or burn into my memory...a unique, beautiful style.
Black Sun is classic Abbey and I enjoyed it immensely (although The Fool's Progress remains my favorite of Abbey's 'fiction'). Yes, he can be crass and vulgar. But the book is as honest as it is beautiful. It's a book of love plain and simple. Love for a girl. Love for the desert and the forests. Love for solitude. Almost every page had a line, a sentence, a passage that I wanted to underline or highlight or burn into my memory...a unique, beautiful style.
October 13, 2010
I'm in love with this book in every way. Edward Abbey is a phenomenal writer, and it's a pity that his literature gets tossed aside because of the "ecoterrorist" themes in the Monkeywrench Gang. His imagery in Black Sun is like poetry: beautiful enough to make you cry. On the very second page I read the best coffee description in my life. I don't have the book with me right now, but it was something like, "he poured himself a cup of black, smoking, rich and murderous coffee." Brilliant.
November 16, 2007
Absolutely loved it. A gentler Abbey, but still the dirty old man that he is with a great vocabulary and passionate hatred for organization, government, etc. Gritty.
May 29, 2024
All I can say is beautifully weird and perfectly unsatisfying. The descriptions and nature of the book keeps you going, the timeline keeps you in a sense of lost confusion. The ending is, well unsatisfactory, but I think it would be much worse with a satisfying ending.
July 3, 2012
This book really touched on what it is to be lonely and to live a life of loneliness and melancholy.
The main character is a machismo yet philosophical, ex professor who takes on a job for half of the year as a fire lookout. He remains in contact with another character mainly through letters that mostly talk about sexual encounters with women, failed relationships, and how silly it is to live in the forest for half of the year. The letters are quite misogynistic and consistently go into detail about how women are conniving, selfish, and good for only sex. But in a much more eloquent and poetic prose. Then in walks a beautiful young girl named Sandy. She takes interest in this older, brute, non-committal man and they have a passionate love affair in the mystical forest. The love story is definitely more of a man's sexual fantasy; young virgin girl, perfect body, willing to have lots of steamy sex with said non-committal, older man.
Abbey takes you through lyrical and descriptive forest scenes which compelled me to continue reading. His observations of the natural world are poetic and inspiring. The love story does carry some interest as you see this man unfold parts of himself to this woman...it also carries a mildly tragic mood which I found to be unconventional and honest. The ending is very unsettling which I liked and the non-chronological order of things makes it more like part of a memory that is being remembered in jumbled up fragments. It's an easy read and if I were a middle aged, nature loving guy, I probably would have loved it.
The main character is a machismo yet philosophical, ex professor who takes on a job for half of the year as a fire lookout. He remains in contact with another character mainly through letters that mostly talk about sexual encounters with women, failed relationships, and how silly it is to live in the forest for half of the year. The letters are quite misogynistic and consistently go into detail about how women are conniving, selfish, and good for only sex. But in a much more eloquent and poetic prose. Then in walks a beautiful young girl named Sandy. She takes interest in this older, brute, non-committal man and they have a passionate love affair in the mystical forest. The love story is definitely more of a man's sexual fantasy; young virgin girl, perfect body, willing to have lots of steamy sex with said non-committal, older man.
Abbey takes you through lyrical and descriptive forest scenes which compelled me to continue reading. His observations of the natural world are poetic and inspiring. The love story does carry some interest as you see this man unfold parts of himself to this woman...it also carries a mildly tragic mood which I found to be unconventional and honest. The ending is very unsettling which I liked and the non-chronological order of things makes it more like part of a memory that is being remembered in jumbled up fragments. It's an easy read and if I were a middle aged, nature loving guy, I probably would have loved it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 22, 2010
Those of us from the Rocky Mountain states have always revered the late Edward Abbey for his famous memoir Desert Solitaire as well has his other non-fiction writings that testify of his love for the American west and his white-hot determination to preserve the beauties and bounties of its wilderness areas and to protect them from encroaching development. Black Sun is a slightly different kind of a work for Abbey-- a short, bittersweet novel with a cryptic ending and no particular respect for chronology (the story jumps all over the place forward and backward in time). For reasons that are not explained fully, Will Gatlin, 37, is a sad and disillusioned man who apparently was once a university professor, but now has all but abandoned life among other people, and now works in virtual isolation on the Grand Canyon North Rim as a lookout for fires. He meets 19-year-old university student Sandy MacKenzie, and their subsequent affair begins to bring him somewhat back to the land of the living. The story exudes Abbey’s reverence for the Arizona landscapes and their indescribable magnificence and beauty. There is also a certain element of eroticism that, to my knowledge, is not typical in Abbey's other writings. I’m trying to avoid a spoiler, but must say that the reader ends up clueless about the mysterious fate of Sandy and about what may become of Will. The Abbey-esque texture of the writing, however, is awe-inspiring and beautiful.
August 30, 2021
Annoying and frustrating objectification of women through this entire book. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t heartfelt… Written by a man for men.
I liked the premise - Will - older man (not really, he was 37), Sandy - younger woman (she was 19), sex in the forests, blissful solitude deep in the mountains, she disappears, he’s heartbroken. Nice backbone, but no meat.
The conversations between the two are frenzied, terse, quippy and snarky. Not real or believable. He refers to her as “the girl” when not in direct conversation with her. He says he would marry her, but when she asks if he loves her, he refuses to answer her… But the real chauvinistic star is the friend Ballantine. Absolutely cringe-worthy. He writes sexist, vomit-inducing letters to Will, one includes his tirade of how prostitution should be legalized and “open to all girls, all women, of any age… who think they have something to offer men…”. This is after he’s left by a lover, “my delicious Darnelle… has flown my coop and left me stranded high and dry. Of course she’s replaceable - there’s fifty thousand waiting for me in this one city alone…”
I’m by no means a feminist, or find myself particularly offended by men’s notions of women and relationships, but, the male characters in this book are pathetic. No wonder the ladies left them.
I liked the premise - Will - older man (not really, he was 37), Sandy - younger woman (she was 19), sex in the forests, blissful solitude deep in the mountains, she disappears, he’s heartbroken. Nice backbone, but no meat.
The conversations between the two are frenzied, terse, quippy and snarky. Not real or believable. He refers to her as “the girl” when not in direct conversation with her. He says he would marry her, but when she asks if he loves her, he refuses to answer her… But the real chauvinistic star is the friend Ballantine. Absolutely cringe-worthy. He writes sexist, vomit-inducing letters to Will, one includes his tirade of how prostitution should be legalized and “open to all girls, all women, of any age… who think they have something to offer men…”. This is after he’s left by a lover, “my delicious Darnelle… has flown my coop and left me stranded high and dry. Of course she’s replaceable - there’s fifty thousand waiting for me in this one city alone…”
I’m by no means a feminist, or find myself particularly offended by men’s notions of women and relationships, but, the male characters in this book are pathetic. No wonder the ladies left them.
November 21, 2011
A simple and lovely novel by the late and truly missed master of environmental essays. What is best is its honesty. The portrayals of sexual desire will be uncomfortable for many. But for those readers who recognize themselves as humans not bound by out-of-date moral strictures, it is eerily moving.
April 11, 2021
This is a beautiful, heartbreaking story about the mysteries of love and nature, set against the background of the American Southwest. Abbey never fails to surprise and having previously read The Monkeywrench Gang, Hayduke Lives, and Good News, this was a BIG surprise.
This is a tender, tragic romance. A story of love and beauty and the ultimate impermanence of both.
This is a tender, tragic romance. A story of love and beauty and the ultimate impermanence of both.
July 29, 2017
This is just silly, macho bullshit! The guy loves walking around naked. Fine. You don't catch rainbow trout and catfish in the same stream. Then we have the obsession with the beautiful 19-year-old girl. It's just ridiculous!
January 18, 2021
For a Abbey book, there was way too much sex, no where near enough wilderness, and not a peep about Forest Service shenanigans. And it was anticlimactic, we never did find out what happened to the girl.
August 29, 2013
A re-read,20 years later. I'm all atwitter.
December 16, 2017
It's no Desert Solitaire
No Abbey book has ever satisfied after that one. He writes beautifully, among the best, but just not my cup of tea
No Abbey book has ever satisfied after that one. He writes beautifully, among the best, but just not my cup of tea
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September 22, 2024Well…. The descriptions of nature were pretty cool? I am mildly more afraid of men after this one. I finished this while sitting in a cemetery. Seems fitting. Kind of reminded me of picnic at hanging rock
October 5, 2024
Not what I expected. It’s sexist, but honest from a man’s point of view? I read it in one sitting and I’m left feeling a bit sad.
April 21, 2023
Always go back to this book
November 7, 2010
I thought this book was amazing and the reason being is that the story is so believable. While reading it I was inspired to begin writing my own book based on a very similar story I have in my mind and have experienced in my life. Abbey is a wonderful author. I believe that Abbey did a great job at recreating the emotions involved with a true love affair.
Some scenes are not appropriate for the sexually inexperienced person or love-deprived because the depth of the writing is discovered through reliving such acts that have happened in one's own life. Abbey brings the reader to an emotional point that not many people, I feel, can deeply respect. The wildness of this story reigns true to the wildness of every one's heart. Abbey just had the guts to explore it and make it real on the page.
Some scenes are not appropriate for the sexually inexperienced person or love-deprived because the depth of the writing is discovered through reliving such acts that have happened in one's own life. Abbey brings the reader to an emotional point that not many people, I feel, can deeply respect. The wildness of this story reigns true to the wildness of every one's heart. Abbey just had the guts to explore it and make it real on the page.
December 11, 2016
The late Edward Abbey takes a detour here from his normal wilderness epics and tells a love story, liberally peppered with sex and passion. Abbey is one of the best writers about the natural beauty of the American West. Whether it is a journal of a summer spent as a ranger, a plea for conservation of natural resources, a tribute to the canyons and deserts or a novel about a whacky group of environmental activists, Abbey's reverence and respect for the outdoors distinguish his work. He is hard to put down. An Abbey book is the next best thing to a backpacking trip.
While this is a somewhat different genre for Abbey - middle aged guy meets very young almost jailbait girl - he spins the yarn and draws you in. Only 150 pages and can be read in a few hours. But if you get into Abbey start with Desert Solitaire, Down by River and The Monkey Wrench Gang.
While this is a somewhat different genre for Abbey - middle aged guy meets very young almost jailbait girl - he spins the yarn and draws you in. Only 150 pages and can be read in a few hours. But if you get into Abbey start with Desert Solitaire, Down by River and The Monkey Wrench Gang.
April 26, 2021
I really really wanted to like this book. The setting for this book is in Northern AZ and the main character is a fire lookout - how applicable to my life, right? However, the book is absolutely awful. So many sexist and racist tones and it’s absolutely vulgar. A 37 y/o man falling in lust with a 19 year old girl. The objectification and dehumanization of women in this book is outrageous. This is just an erotica novel and I am so disgusted that I PAID for this book. If this book was more than 200 pages I would’ve tossed it but it was short enough to keep me in to finish it.
My first one star review and it was rightly earned.
Apparently Abbey dedicated this book to his dying wife, but the main character in the book is apparently divorced and has this fling with a teenager. How disgusting to dedicate this to your wife!!!!
My first one star review and it was rightly earned.
Apparently Abbey dedicated this book to his dying wife, but the main character in the book is apparently divorced and has this fling with a teenager. How disgusting to dedicate this to your wife!!!!
April 22, 2016
Well that's several hours of my life I'll never get back. What was the point of this book? Nice descriptions of fire-lookouts, and the wilderness when he went searching for the girl. Other than that - definitely EPA's writing style, however, having come to this book right after Fire on the Mountain & The Brave Cowboy, I was left with that feeling you get when you drink a case of beer looking for the buzz & then learning too late it was non-alcoholic. I mean, what was the point of his alcohol imbued sex obsessed academic friend? Lose that character & the preppy air-force cadet with a weird sense of honour, and....well, I guess I needed to read the book to complete all of EPA's work. Sure won't be reading this one again.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 23, 2011
This book has come alive for me partially because of the rich descriptive language and partially because I've been reading it on my walks in the burning summer sun. Will, the main character is a self-professed "old man" at thirty something, and he certainly does act, or at least think like and old man (Abbey was in his forties when he wrote it). The beauty of this novel is in the love story. If you ever had trouble describing infatuation or new love, let Abbey help you. And if you've never been in love but have experienced the paralyzing beauty of a sunset or the humility and awe-inducing quality of the lonely wild, let Abbey show you that they are the same, at least in his mind.
May 4, 2016
"That wasn't my question. Mountains or desert?"
"I feel at home in the mountains," he said. "I understand the forest. Trees are human."
"Then you don't like the desert."
"There's something about the desert I don't understand. Something out there, in that emptiness, frightens me a little."
"And the canyon?"
"The canyon? Yes, the canyon. The underworld. The Hopis think it's the home of evil spirits. They may be right."
"I like it."
"You're braver than I am, lass. We get timid I our middle age."
They both fell silent for a few moments.
"I want you to come with me and stay with me for the rest of my life. If I live that long."
"I feel at home in the mountains," he said. "I understand the forest. Trees are human."
"Then you don't like the desert."
"There's something about the desert I don't understand. Something out there, in that emptiness, frightens me a little."
"And the canyon?"
"The canyon? Yes, the canyon. The underworld. The Hopis think it's the home of evil spirits. They may be right."
"I like it."
"You're braver than I am, lass. We get timid I our middle age."
They both fell silent for a few moments.
"I want you to come with me and stay with me for the rest of my life. If I live that long."
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December 30, 2008I enjoyed this book. It was a fairly simple story of love and loss. My son is an Edward Abbey fan (we have to have conversations about why eco-terrorism is NOT a good idea!) and he really liked "The Monkey Wrench Gang" yet hated this one. I wasn't looking for any great philosophy of life, just entertainment, and I was entertained. It was a little descriptive of the sex! I'm kind of embarrassed that I bought it for my teenage son... I just knew Michael is an Abbey fan and picked it up for fifty-nine cents or whatever....
June 10, 2015
Beautiful descriptions of the American West from the POV of a protagonist with my dream job (fire lookout) coupled with a weird, drawn-out sexual fantasy/tragic romance loaded with corny tropes. The writing alternates between gorgeous and cringe-y, and the plot is pretty predictable -- still, Abbey sucked me in and made me care about the characters, and I read this one quickly. Not a good starting point for anyone interested in Abbey (I suggest Desert Solitude, Monkey Wrench Gang, and The Journey Home), but worthwhile if you've read his essentials and want something quick and easy.
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