The book you hold in your hands is considered a “prose masterpiece” and the best that Edward Abbey ever produced.

Who is Edward Abbey?

Seeing that I can’t define myself, I won’t attempt to define this man, but Abbey once referred to himself as an “educated redneck.”

He earned degrees in English and philosophy but was shunned by the academic elite and New York book reviewers because he often stabbed their sacred cows. Some liberals called him racist, sexist, misogynist, and so on, to which he said, “I’m not sexist, but sexual.”

He was also hated by some on the right, for he scrutinized with clear logic the effects of ranching, mining, tourism, and the overall industrialization of modern civilization, or what he affectionately called “syphilisation.”

He was known by his friends as Cactus Ed. A prickly fellow. And he’s an absolute hoot to read. More than that, his essays are provocative, inspiring, and hauntingly beautiful. No other nature writer, in my view, has produced such art.

Besides that, the subject of this book is our backyard: the canyonland country of Utah. Abbey wrote most of it while a park ranger at Arches in the 1950s. There’s an essay dedicated to rocks, which I’m sure you’ll appreciate. There’s also a great story about the uranium mining boom, and some good tales of hiking and hunting and herding and floating rivers. And through it all runs a thread of political commentary that is fierce yet reasonable.

Hell, the author’s introduction is as incendiary as a good homemade pipe bomb.

If you can’t get into the book itself, you might find the audio version online and listen to it during your next trip out to Castle Country.

Or ignore all this altogether. I wouldn’t be offended. I’m of the mind that the books we read choose us, we don’t choose them.

Perhaps Desert Solitaire will choose you.

Peace,

Ryan