Volume 35, Number 13 · August 18, 1988
The Desert Anarchist
By Bill McKibben
The Best of Edward Abbey
edited by Edward Abbey
Sierra Club Books, 400 pp., $10.95 (paper)
OTHER BOOKS BY EDWARD ABBEY DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY
One Life at a Time, Please
by Edward Abbey
Henry Holt, 225 pp., $7.95 (paper)
Desert Solitaire
by Edward Abbey
Ballantine, 255 pp., $3.50 (paper)
The Monkey Wrench Gang
by Edward Abbey
Avon, 387 pp., $4.50 (paper)
Down the River
by Edward Abbey
Dutton, 256 pp., $9.95 (paper)
Beyond the Wall
by Edward Abbey
Henry Holt, 203 pp., $7.95 (paper)
Early in his first collection of essays, Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey describes a scene from a summer he spent as the ranger at the then-deserted Arches National Monument in southern Utah, his nearest neighbor twenty miles distant across the sand and the slickrock. Wishing one evening to write a letter, Abbey went outside and hooked up the four-cylinder gas engine that served as his generator. 'The engine sputters, gasps, catches fire, gains momentum, winds up into a roar, valves popping, rockers thumping, pistons hissing up and down inside their oiled jackets.' The lights go on—indeed,
Review, 3606 words
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