Excerpt from Sunny's Nights by Tim Sultan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I was certain that I had never encountered a more arresting presence.

I stayed awhile longer in the hope Sunny would come back over to where I was sitting but he was so deeply engrossed in conversation that eventually, I put my jacket and cap on and slipped out the door as quietly as I had come in, knowing I would be back.

But the next time I returned—­and the one or two times after that—­I found the bar dark, the door locked, the street deserted. I cupped my face against the window and peered into the inkiness inside, but there was no sign of Sunny, of the projector’s flicker, or of any of the drinking, smoking men who had been there that first night. The sailor in the photograph in the window was the only witness who could corroborate that the night had taken place at all.

Months passed, until one evening in September I was returning from a quiet dinner with a onetime flame in Manhattan and feeling that restive curiosity again. I decided to give Sunny and his bar one more try. I slowly drove down his block and as I passed the two shabby awnings, I thought I could detect a glow coming from inside. I parked by the Animal Hair Manufacturing Company. I walked to the front door and I saw that the colored Christmas lights strung up behind the bar were lit again and I entered and sat at the same spot, three rickety barstools in. Many of the same faces were there. When Sunny saw me, he strolled over, cried, “Timmy! How are you, my buddy?” and leaned across the bar to embrace me.

“You remember my name?”

“Of course I do. How could I not?”

And so our friendship began.

Excerpted from Sunny's Nights by Tim Sultan. Copyright © 2016 by Tim Sultan. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.