Page "Black Sun (Edward Abbey novel)" Paragraph 2

Many friends of Abbey have claimed the author called Black Sun his favorite of his works.

But it was not well received by critics and the public.

The first-run paperback edition by Avon sold only 100, 000 copies, where the first run of paperback editions for Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang both sold more than a half million copies, according to Cahalan's " Edward Abbey, A Life.

" He wrote: " The New Yorker called Black Sun ' an embarrassingly bad novel.

' Even Abbey's new friend Edward Hoagland -- who had first written to him on March 19, 1970 praising Desert Solitaire -- lamented in the New York Times Book Review that Black Sun was " not a masterpiece " like Desert Solitaire, complaining that " he does not always finish his books but publishes next-to-last drafts.