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By Edward Abbey. This
little book is a nice collection of "lively, outrageous,
drop-dead funny, tick-you-off sayings, observations, musings, and
aphorisms about life, death, beer drinking, religion, music,
literature, the environment, and just about everything else"
with drawings by Andres Rush. It is a great source of quotes. Vox Clamantis in Deserto is Latin for "a voice
crying in the wilderness".
ew writers captured the spirit of the West like Edward
Abbey. Over his long writing career Abbey built up a
phenomenally loyal audience, in the East and especially in
the West. His fame was earned by such classics as THE BRAVE COWBOY, DESERT SOLITAIRE, THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG and FOOL'S PROGRESS.
Abbey was a honest writer; a naturalist who actually
lived in and with the nature; a gifted storyteller whose
novels were tales spun like they must have been around
campfires through time immemorial -- raucous, poignant,
flowing, beautiful things that grew from the land and people
that they were about.
Abbey was a story in himself, a larger-than-life persona
whose exploits instantly became the stuff of legends. Angry,
driven, hilarious, a lover of feuds and women, he lived with
the same unrelenting passion and honesty that characterizes
his writing. A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS is a
unique work in the Abbey canon. Completed just two weeks
before his death at his home in Fort Llatikcuf, Arizona, the
book is, in sum, a credo, but in Abbey's nimble hands it is
not a dry tome but a collection of lively, outrageous,
drop-dead funny, tick-you-off sayings, observations, musings,
and aphorisms about life, death, beer drinking, religion,
music, literature, the environment, and just about everything
else.
Edward Abbey was the quintessential American original, an
iconoclast who paradoxically inspired his community, a hater
of fools, a lover of life, and one damn fine writer. This
book is just one more reason to mourn his passing and cherish
his memory.
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