“Black Sun” is a Remarkable Achievement of Storytelling
“Black Sun” is less a novel, and more an experience. Roanhorse’s storytelling will carry you far from home, sweeping like a sweet wind past jagged mountains, over vast expanses of ocean and cliff cities that weathered the anger of gods. It will pour you into ships with fickle crewmen and ill-lit cells that unlock to new beginnings. It will siphon you away from the dead-end corridors of a loveless house before the walls hem you in, and pin your heart to a small, hushed cabin where a bruised, chafed longing still lingers in the air like lightning… before finally falling still as lake water atop a freestanding mesa where a man opens his eyes and becomes a god.
Roanhorse spins a tale that thrums with the heady fervor of an epic but is as intimate as any kiss, told as tightly and tautly as a zither string, with words that feel as smooth as creek stones. The first line catches the eye and holds it: “ Today he would become a god ”. What follows is less a prologue, and more a lifting of veils, a ripping of something wide open—like a ribcage—until every word is a wound. It’s disquieting, affecting, wildly devastating. And once you cross that river of ravaged language, there will be no escape, no moment to gasp for breath. You will burn through the pages, and through the hours, until all time and words are spent, and you will ask for more, wishing you could somehow extend the reach of both.