“The best biography ever about Ed. Cahalan’s meticulous research and thoughtful interviews have made this book the authoritative source for Abbey scholars and fans alike.”  —Doug Peacock, author, environmentalist activist and explorer, and the inspiration for Hayduke in The Monkey Wrench Gang He was a hero to environmentalists and the patron saint of monkeywrenchers, a man in love with desert solitude. A supposed misogynist, ornery and contentious, he nevertheless counted women among his closest friends and admirers. He attracted a cult following, but he was often uncomfortable with it. He was a writer who wandered far from Home without really starting out there. James Cahalan has written a definitive biography of a contemporary literary icon whose life was a web of contradictions. Edward Abbey: A Life sets the record straight on "Cactus Ed," giving readers a fuller, more human Abbey than most have ever known. It separates fact from fiction, showing that much of the myth surrounding Abbey—such as his birth in Home, Pennsylvania, and later residence in Oracle, Arizona—was self-created and self-perpetuated. It also shows that Abbey cultivated a persona both in his books and as a public speaker that contradicted his true nature: publicly racy and sardonic, he was privately reserved and somber. Cahalan studied all of Abbey's works and private papers and interviewed many people who knew him—including the models for characters in The Brave Cowboy and The Monkey Wrench Gang —to create the most complete picture to date of the writer's life. He examines Abbey's childhood roots in the East and his love affair with the West, his personal relationships and tempestuous marriages, and his myriad jobs in continually shifting locations—including sixteen national parks and forests. He also explores Abbey's writing process, his broad intellectual interests, and the philosophical roots of his politics. For Abbey fans who assume that his "honest novel," The Fool's Progress, was factual or that his public statements were entirely off the cuff, Cahalan's evenhanded treatment will be an eye-opener. More than a biography, Edward Abbey: A Life is a corrective that shows that he was neither simply a countercultural cowboy hero nor an unprincipled troublemaker, but instead a complex and multifaceted person whose legacy has only begun to be appreciated. The book contains 30 photographs, capturing scenes ranging from Abbey's childhood to his burial site. Edward Abbey (1927-89) has long been a hero to the American environmental movement, and his nature writing (e.g., Desert Solitaire) and best novels (The Monkey Wrench Gang) are pioneering works. But as his biographer points out, the man himself was a complex individual who had a personality and lifestyle different from the persona in his books and articles. Cahalan successfully disproves some of the charges of racism and sexism leveled against Abbey while also showing that the redneck image of "Cactus Ed" he cultivated was really a fiction that he hid behind. Cahalan utilizes resources from library collections, but he also relies on almost 100 interviews with Abbey's family, friends, and colleagues. Though the author repeats his main points throughout the text, his book offers both depth and detail, easily surpassing James Bishop's Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist (LJ 6/1/94). Included is a valuable chronological bibliography of all of Abbey's writings. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries. (Index not seen.) Morris Hounion, New York City Technical Coll. Lib., Brooklyn Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Abbey is a volatile, significant, and underrated force in American letters, a dust devil hard to bring into focus. Revered as a nature writer (Desert Solitaire , 1968, is a classic in the genre) and a radical environmentalist (his novel The Monkey Wrench Gang , 1975, inspired the activist group Earth First!), he's been called, unfairly, a misogynist and a racist. As Cahalan, Abbey's first biographer, so cogently explains, Abbey, like Hemingway, contrived a tough-guy public persona, when in fact he was circumspect, generous, and intellectual. Not that Abbey didn't drink and womanize and express provocative, politically incorrect opinions. Determined to cut through myth and rumor, Cahalan meticulously tracks the course of Abbey's often feral yet always creative and resonant life, chronicling his Appalachian boyhood, devotion to literature, and love for his adopted territory, the Southwest. Abbey worked as a park ranger, taught, and wrote passionately about his love of land, liberty, and justice in brilliant and thorny works that will be read, along with his heroes, Thoreau and Steinbeck, for time out of mind. Donna Seaman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Winner of the Western Literature Association’s Thomas J. Lyon Award "[A] beautifully rendered, sensitive and revealing work." — Publishers Weekly "The best p