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By Edward Abbey. In
the spirit of DESERT SOLITAIRE, ABBEY'S ROAD is a personal
odyssey. Edward Abbey's explorations include the familiar territory of the Rio
Grande in Texas and Canyonlands National Park and Lake Powell in Utah. He also
takes us to such varied places as Scotland, the interior of Australia, and the
Sierra Madre and Isla de la Sombra in Mexico.
Curmudgeon, environmental brawler, and literary desert rat, Edward
Abbey nursed dreams of one day walking out into the wild "to become one
with the landscape. To just... disappear." He made valiant efforts to
make good on that dream of escape in sometimes harebrained, often
dangerous expeditions to difficult places, adventures some of which are
recounted in this lively collection of essays. The first part of Abbey's Road
is given to a walkabout in the outback of Australia, whose scattered
human settlements remind Abbey of towns in the American West, "although
not so blatantly ugly." Having ignored good advice not to stray too far
afield in that waterless place and lived to tell the tale, Abbey turns
later in the book to other desert landscapes (islands in the Gulf of
California, remote corners of the Grand Canyon, and the like) before
delivering a series of trademark yawps against the forces that would
just as soon bulldoze such places as protect them.
Softcover; 224 pages.
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