This was one of those books I had no initial interest in reading. One of those books I went ahead and paid for anyway. One of those books that sat unnoticed on my shelf for countless months, until I finally decided to just get rid of it. One of those books I just hadn't the heart to dispose of. Not without reading it first.I decided I would force myself. Fuck it. Here it goes.That sweet old man in the upper-left picture created one of the most creepy, original, and somehow lovable psychopaths of all time. I haven't read all the Hannibal books - only 'Red Dragon' - but I am a fan of the movies ... even though the second one was pretty fucking disturbing. Anyway ... when I started reading this, I was well aware that it wasn't part of the Hannibal series. I wasn't aware that this was Harris's debut novel. That alone made it much more interesting. When I reviewed 'Red Dragon', I sided with Stephen Arrogance, and said that Harris was a bad writer, but a good storyteller. I guess, in retrospect, I still had Stephen King stuck pretty far up my arse, because the writing in this book was fine. Like any effective thriller should be, the style of 'Black Sunday' was sharp, simple and straight to the point. No bullshit, in other words.There were some weirder lines that went a little too far with the imaginative imagery, turning what should have been just basic descriptions into obscure, nonsensical pictures that would have had even Salvador Dali scratching his head. Visual images that require you ... or, at least, me ...To gaze lopsidedly up from the pages, suck my thumb and say, "Now wait one cotton-picking minute. I gotta take a moment to work this shit out". I guess I'm a bit of a nutcase when it comes to reading - my brain has this dysfunction that forces me to read certain lines several times over when it feels like fucking my life up. Because of this, I always get very worked up when I discover, later on, that I've been interpreting something entirely wrong. Example? (I'm sure you're intrigued). Okay ... well not long after reading Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird', I became quite the model for inner embarrassment and endless turmoil - of hitting the back of my head and pacing my bedroom - when I found out that "Ewell" was not the fuck pronounced "E-Well". That sounds like some goddamned medicine for indigestion or something. So, like, I was going to apologize for the offensive picture above. Except having just related that information, I think I'll stand by it after all. Anyway, apart from the occasional mindfuck, I thought that the writing was good. But let's move on to the story. Shall we?It worked very similarly, I found, to the style of 'Red Dragon'. By that, I mean it took its sweet ass time to really get anywhere. And one could be forgiven for calling it a pretty boring story, for the first 150 pages, at least. However, let me refrain, in the most pretentious of manners, from turning this point into a criticism. You see, douchebags, if you choose to focus your stories/films on murderers and terrorists, you can't just settle with making them cool for the mere fact that they like to kill people. Before you get all steamed up, and tell me I'm not your "master" or something, Quentin, old boy, I think that all your movies are very well directed. But then that's about all they really are. Call me an old lady, or an Anti-Semite Nazi-Lover. You can call me whatever the hell defines those detested freaks of nature that do not drawl over glorified violence ... but I personally think that your films are shallow, fucking disgraceful, in their depictions of human nature. Yes, human nature is fucked up now. But you're not doing much to better that, asshole. The Wachowski Brothers ... the same thing. Go and fucking mow down fifty police-officers ... then tell me that your motives were justified because you did it all in slow-motion. I guess I shouldn't turn this review in a rant, but I just wanted to give what I think is a pretty good example of how not to portray the lifestyle of what is, essentially, an evil person.What Thomas Harris achieves, by taking his time to explore the main characters, (in both 'Black Sunday' and 'Red Dragon'), is a group of people you don't exactly feel much affection for ... but, at the same time, are surprising invested in nonetheless. Black September conspirators, Michael, Dahlia, and Fasil, were all quite fucked up people. But especially in the case of Michael, the author really does a great job in bringing his background to the forefront of his motivation for killing 84,000 civilians. I wouldn't say his actions are justified ... but there was a certain part of me that understood his need for such violence. It never quite explains why the other terrorists are so hell-bent on causing such tragedy, but they were almost as interesting, and easy to get a handle on, while you were reading about them. At this point in my experience of reading books, Thomas Harris (though definitely not the best, or my favourite) has probably got the best tools in bringing his character to life. Stephen King is also very good at doing this ... as is Peter Straub. But Harris is the only author that I've read so far, who can really convey his exposition through to his readers, without even once pushing back their attention.While this novel isn't nearly as iconic as his later ones would be, I still think it was a fairly enjoyable experience. With complex characters (I never actually mentioned the heroes, but they're pretty awesome, as well), a wonderful and interesting build-up, some effectively-handled moments of pure suspense, and a cracking (somewhat unexpected) conclusion, this novel is well worth the read. The entire genre that this book aimed for is not really my cup of tea, so I feel confident that anyone who does devour action/thrillers, will more likely give it a higher rating. But for what it's worth, I'm very grateful to have not been able to return this book without even giving it a chance. It was another decent book, by a more than decent author. But being the twisted bundle of depression that I am ... there are still a few matters which I can't quite put aside here. Not without calling my ex-girlfriend at four in the morning, and threatening to kill myself, if she doesn't come over to assure me that we still have a chance. 1) The editor of this edition must have been moved into Special Needs during High School. He must have been given this job as a desperate means to boost his confidence. Because I seriously lost count of the amount of fuck-ups there were in the editing. I choose not to think that Mr. Harris was to blame here. I mean, they were only little things, but who in God's, name can take. Credit for t,his kind of editing? 2) While I just squirted over how interesting Harris's method of expositional storytelling is, he does seem to have an unfortunate obsession with boring the fuck out of me with drawn-out details on how the fucking guns work. That's not interesting, Buddy!!! Remember the picture before? That shit doesn't sink in for me!! 3) This book was longer than it looked, and it also took me ages to read, because about halfway through, I only went and left it in another city, and had to start reading something else instead. And while I guess it is quite unreasonable to pin this shit on the book, the concept of reading more than one thing at once did not sit too well with that nutcase upstairs. And someone has to take the blame, right? I guess I could be like the British Media, and accuse the authorities for "Not Realizing Sooner". Or I could just go all out and accept the blame myself. But nah, it was Thomas Harris, I'm pretty sure it was him ...
I must say I’m pleasantly surprised with this book. I bought it long ago, the summer I worked at Cedar Point in college, before I really knew where to start with “real” reading having recently declared as an English major. I remember reading On The Road back and forth across the causeway to work on the bus (what a great time to read that… I was about ready to do exactly as the characters did, as I’m sure many who’ve read the book have felt), as well as at Soak City on afternoons off. I also bought Nine Stories that summer, both due to my roommate’s recommendation, but other than that I didn’t know where to begin. I remember I bought Dante’s Inferno, thinking it was a classic that an English major should read, and I never touched it that summer or any other. And this was the final book I bought, recognizing the author from The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, which I read as a high school senior and college freshmen. I never got around to reading this but always kept it around thinking that I someday might. This summer I felt in the mood for a thriller that wasn’t such a pathetic shlocbuster as the modern James Patterson / Brad Thor / Brad Metlzer books tend to be. I didn’t set my sights too high, either, but I was really gripped by this from beginning to end. The whole novel is very fast-paced, plot-based, action-oriented. Within 5 pages you are hit with the premise – Black September terrorists plan to hit the Super Bowl. It is true that it isn’t very character based and that many of today’s reviewers claim it is “lame” or “stereotypical” to write about Arab terrorists attacking Americans; but I just kept thinking that this was written in 1975, before it became too “stereotypical,” right in the hey-day of the Middle East conflict, the Six-Day War, Munich, etc., not to mention that this book is written a heckuva lot better than the aforementioned thrillers, with suspense, backstory, detail, and dialogue that doesn’t sound like such garbage coming out of the characters’ mouths. (I also thought it was really interesting to read this immediately after reading “The Lessons of Terror.” All of the talk of “targeting civilians” and sides “waging never-ending revenge” in a futile battle of “winning hearts and minds” was really interesting to see dramatized….)Although this probably doesn’t stand in the realm of “great literature” with some of my other four-star reviews, I really enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down. For a thriller that doesn’t make you want to laugh or roll your eyes, I would definitely suggest this before any of the modern-day, stereotypical crap.
What do You think about Black Sunday (2005)?
Thomas Harris has only written five books. I had read four of them before picking up Black Sunday. Harris' only non-Hannibal Lecter novel, it concerns a plot to set off a bomb over the Super Bowl via an advertising blimp.Black Sunday suffers in the same way that Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon do when read today in that Harris' books have been virtually strip-mined by Hollywood. I'm not just talking about adaptations into television and film… I'm talking the very DNA of Harris' work has wormed its' way into every procedural and crime story that exists in the 21st century. That makes approaching Black Sunday a little bit difficult - it reads somewhat like a taught knock-off of a lot of what's out there, until you realize… no, all that other stuff is aping Harris!Getting beyond that, as I said, it's a taught thriller. Even at his earliest, Harris is so good at capturing little moments and details that tell you more about the characters than dialogue or narration ever could. I enjoyed the way Harris doesn't seem to give a shit whether or not you like Kabakov and Moshevsky until he builds up enough small details whereby you find yourself surprised by how much you like them. Harris is also deft at juggling perspectives and unlike many writers, when he shifts to a new character… you don't really get a trace of previous characters.Having said that, Black Sunday has a few issues. There are a few "info dump" chapters which I felt slowed things down considerably. There were a couple of plot cul-de-sacs that did almost nothing for me; a late-in-the-story visit from Lander's wife seemed off-point, although I understand how Harris used her as motivation for Lander's sickness.If I'm forced to choose between 3 and 4 starts on here… I choose 3. It's a solid suspense tale and a quick read. While those things sometimes proclaim "disposable", I found Black Sunday to be anything but. At the same time, there was weakness to this book I couldn't ignore. It's more like 3.5 stars for me.
—Chris
Before the Hannibal Lecter’s books Thomas Harris wrote “the Black Sunday” in the 70’s. The book describes the terroristic group which is willing to strike the USA. They are planning to kill the president of the USA and 80.000 men along with him in the stadium by the blimp filled with the high explosive, plastid. The terrorists, Dahlia and Najer recruit the American, Landen who suffered a lot in Vietnam War. He shows his willing to blast the blimp. Dahlia is expert in making people expendable, she’s psychologist. She feels that Larden is not bluffing. She suggests his candidature to the terrorists as a reliable person. Mayor, Kabakov is sent from Israel to help Americans in catching ‘em. He’s skilled anti-terrorist agent of Massad. He killed Najer but hesitated to kill Dahlia as well, in hotel with Najer in Beirut. He thought she was his slut. Afterwards, he regretted very much for not killing her. Dahlia killed lots of people who would have intervened with their plan of mass slaying. Kabakov doesn’t know in what way they want to strike. But in the end when seeing approaching blimp in the air to the stadium he thought quick ad decided to use a chopper to intercept the blimp. He with the FBI agent kills Dahlia and turns the blimp to the riverside near the stadium. Laden could detonate the charge but in that time the blimp was not on the stadium so the casualties were only 512. Unfortunately, Mayor Kabakov was dead. But he saved thousands of people.
—Nazim
Thomas Harris is best-known for his Hannibal Lecter books, but Black Sunday was his first published novel. Harris wrote the novel in the 1970s, following the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics. While many of the details seem dated (the key terrorist is a traumatized Vietnam veteran, the technology used in the attack is too primitive by today's standards), the theme of terrorism and a high- profile target such as the Super Bowl is even more relevant today.The story follows Israeli Mossad agent David Kabakov as he tracks several Palestinian terrorists from the Middle East to America. When he realizes the terrorists plan on attacking the Super Bowl, he races to stop the terrorists before they can launch the attack. The story is compelling. Harris' talent for creating memorable villains is displayed here as he gets inside the fractured mind of the volatile and wounded veteran Michael Lander. Lander's devotion to his cause is chilling, and perhaps even more so because he is a home-grown terrorist who is enlisted by foreign agents. Black Sunday is an interesting read, even more so when drawing parallels between the novel, written nearly forty years ago, and today.
—John Cheney
