Black Sun

Capra Press, 1981. Trade paperback. Very Good. 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. Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author, essayist, and anarchist, noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include Desert Solitaire, a non-fiction autobiographical account of his time as a park ranger at Arches National Park considered to be an iconic work of nature writing and a staple of early environmentalist writing; the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by environmentalists and groups defending nature by various means, also called eco-warriors; his novel Hayduke Lives!; and his essay collections Down the River (with Henry Thoreau & Other Friends) (1982) and One Life at a Time, Please (1988).