Sunny's Nights

Lost and Found at the Bar at the End of the World

By: Tim Sultan

Narrated by: Robert Malloch

Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringer’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 world—and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it. The first time he saw Sunny’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 didn’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 bar’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, Sunny’s Nights is a loving and singular portrait of the dream experience we’re all searching for every time we walk into a bar, and an enchanting memoir of an unlikely and abiding friendship. Praise for Sunny’s Nights

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

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

“An affectionate portrait of the idiosyncratic Sunny’s Bar.”—USA Today

“Sultan finds Sunny . . . a real character, a poet, a cinephile, a philosopher, bluegrass maestro and (Rheingold) beer server.”—New York Post (“Required Reading”)

“Captivating . . . a classic story about a local bar.”—The Buffalo News “An enchanting memoir, a profound meditation on place and a beautiful story of an unlikely and abiding friendship.”—Brooklyn Daily Eagle

“[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.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Beautifully wrought . . . an indelible portrait of an unusual man and a nearly forgotten part of NYC.”—Booklist

“More than an elegy for a bar and a neighborhood—it’s also a vivid and loving portrait of the larger-than-life eccentric who gave the bar its name and its spirit.”—Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers

©2016 Tim Sultan (P)2016 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

" Sunny's Nights is more than an elegy for a bar and a neighborhood - it's also a vivid and loving portrait of the larger-than-life eccentric who gave the bar its name and its spirit, and a moving memoir about friendship and finding a home. Tim Sultan is a wonderful writer, wry and observant, with a sly sense of humor and a big heart." (Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers)

"Tim Sultan tells the terrific story of how one dark and raggedy waterfront bar changed his life. It is a wonderfully drawn portrait of the artist as barkeep." (Robert Sullivan, author of My American Revolution)

"This beautifully written chronicle of a disappearing place and its unforgettable people reveals how, sometimes, friendship endures when everything else, except perhaps the memories, is gone." (Howard Frank Mosher, author of God's Kingdom)

Visiting an Era

What made the experience of listening to Sunny's Nights the most enjoyable?

I am 74 so much of this story happened in my years. I was raised in an Italian town not NYC but the characters were so familiar. Tim Sultan was an artist painting in words. None of the characters were role models but they surely lived life. I was sorry to see it end, both the book itself and the time of the real Sunny's.

One great book where "the listen" is even better..

Where does Sunny's Nights rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top 10

What did you like best about this story?

There are plenty of great reviews of the content and I agree with most. Some did not appreciate the winding down of the story, but I think that it's fitting for the arc of the story. As for the Audible version, the voice of the writer is enhanced by the intimate knowledge of the people in the book, by the narrator and adds a great deal to the experience. A gem.

What does Robert Malloch bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I purchased the Audible.com version, well worth the one credit. This was a very fun listen, as I had found a youtube clip of "Sunny" and the narration by Robert Malloch is spot on. As a frequenter of "Sunny's Bar" Robert Malloch seems to capture the voices and the emotions of the stories perfectly. It was a treat to listen to these marvelous stories and the authors journey. Even though I have never visited the bar, nor the Red Hook area of Brooklyn, the combination of listening to this gem and using Google Maps/Earth, it was a great tour of the places as they are now and remembrances of what it was like over the past decades and century. Tim Sultan has given both Sunny Balzano and us a great gift.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Mandala.

Fantastic narration, expertly told tales

the narrator, renewed Sunny personally, does a fantastic job with Tim Sultan's tales of Red Hook throughout the 20th century.