Sunny's Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the

Sunny's Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the World

Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringerâ€™s The Tender Bar and the classic reportage of Joseph Mitchell, here is an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the worldâ€”and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it.

The first time he saw Sunnyâ€™s Bar, in 1995, Tim Sultan was lost, thirsty for a drink, and intrigued by the single bar sign among the forlorn warehouses lining the Brooklyn waterfront. Inside, he found a dimly lit room crammed with maritime artifacts, a dozen well-seasoned drinkers, and, strangely, a projector playing a classic Martha Graham dance performance. Sultan knew he had stumbled upon someplace special. What he didnâ€™t know was that he had just found his new home.

Soon enough, Sultan has quit his office job to bartend full-time for Sunny Balzano, the barâ€™s owner. A wild-haired Tony Bennett lookalike with a fondness for quoting Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett, Sunny is truly one of a kind. Born next to the saloon that has been in his family for one hundred years, Sunny has over the years partied with Andy Warhol, spent time in India at the feet of a guru, and painted abstract expressionist originals. But his masterpiece is the bar itself, a place where a sublime mix of artists, mobsters, honky-tonk musicians, neighborhood drunks, nuns, longshoremen, and assorted eccentrics rub elbows. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly transforming city, Sunnyâ€™s Nights is a loving and singular portrait of the dream experience weâ€™re all searching for every time we walk into a bar, and an enchanting memoir of an unlikely and abiding friendship.

Praise for Sunnyâ€™s Nights

â€œFantastic . . . [Sultan takes] material that might seem familiar and [mixes] a perfect, insightful cocktail: full-bodied, multitextured and delicious. . . . Simply beautiful.â€â€”The New York Times Book Review

â€œSultanâ€™s love of Red Hook shines through, and itâ€™s hard not to be swept along on the ebb and flow of his emotions. . . . Sultanâ€™s book is, among other things, a meditation on the fragility of the moment and the passage of time. . . . Wistful, funny and biting, Sunnyâ€™s Nights rewards you with its evocation of a certain place in time and, as Sultan calls him, â€˜the most original man I have ever met.â€™â€â€”Newsday

â€œAn affectionate portrait of the idiosyncratic Sunnyâ€™s Bar.â€â€”USA Today

â€œSultan finds Sunny . . . a real character, a poet, a cinephile, a philosopher, bluegrass maestro and (Rheingold) beer server.â€â€”New York Post (â€œRequired Readingâ€)

â€œCaptivating . . . a classic story about a local bar.â€â€”The Buffalo News

â€œAn enchanting memoir, a profound meditation on place and a beautiful story of an unlikely and abiding friendship.â€â€”Brooklyn Daily Eagle

â€œ[A] polished, affecting look at remarkable barkeep Sunny Balzano . . . In elegant prose, Sultan deploys laconic humor, an instinct for telling details, a taste for eccentricity, and above all, clear-eyed compassion for our all-too-human failings.â€â€”Publishers Weekly (starred review)

â€œBeautifully wrought . . . an indelible portrait of an unusual man and a nearly forgotten part of NYC.â€â€”Booklist

â€œMore than an elegy for a bar and a neighborhoodâ€”itâ€™s also a vivid and loving portrait of the larger-than-life eccentric who gave the bar its name and its spirit.â€â€”Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers

From the Hardcover edition.

Country	USA
Author	Tim Sultan
Binding	Kindle Edition
EISBN	9780812988482
Format	Kindle eBook
Label	Random House
Manufacturer	Random House
NumberOfPages	290
PublicationDate	2016-02-23
Publisher	Random House
ReleaseDate	2016-02-23
Studio	Random House

Sunny's Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the World

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