By Edward Abbey. "Touching on civil rights, the environment, Vietnam, immigration,
technology, pop culture, industrialism and nearly anything else that
has been a hot-button issue since the mid-20th Century, Abbey's
letters, collected here and presented in chronological order, offer not
only an intriguing portrait of Abbey the writer and individualist, but
of the political state of the nation. By turns lucid and measured, warm
and intimate, or bitingly cruel (and wickedly funny), Abbey displays a
staggering range of concerns, and Abbey's fans will find these missives
no less stinging and eloquent than his best fiction. Knowledge of
Abbey's work (The Monkey Wrench Gang; Desert Solitaire, etc.) helps put
the letters and their author in perspective, though readers
unacquainted with Abbey's career may find this a useful introduction." -- Publishers Weekly
"Edward Abbey (1927-89) was contrary, incorrect, ribald, brilliant,
prescient, outspoken, and outraged. He wrote ravishing and stinging
essays about the glorious and endangered Southwest (Desert Solitaire is now a classic) and wildly satiric novels--most famously The Monkey Wrench Gang--that
explode our cherished myths of the frontier and so-called progress.
Abbey wrote incessantly when he wasn't hiking, wooing women, playing
with his kids, brooding, or torching billboards, and his favorite thing
to write was letters to family, friends, fellow writers, and, most
entertainingly, editors of various newspapers and magazines. Abbey
expert David Petersen has constructed a high-voltage letter collection
that covers every facet of Cactus Ed's full-throttle life, prickly
personality, and profound insights into the dire consequences of greed,
mindless growth, and the "worship of technology." Every thorny issue
Abbey raises in his passionate, entertaining, and hilarious missives
remains urgent, from his concerns about rivers and national parks to
his harsh anti-immigration diatribes and disgust with commercial
culture. Whether he's mocking the New York literati or protesting the
Vietnam War, Abbey writes with wit, genius, fury, and molten lyricism.
Graced with a profoundly moving foreword by Terry Tempest Williams,
this volume of volcanic correspondence is an essential addition to
American literature and the literature of the environment." -- BooklistSoftcover.
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