Finding Abbey The search for Edward Abbey and his hidden desert grave

Prentiss (creative writing, Norwich Univ.) traces the life of the great environmental writer Edward Abbey (1927-89), who has a devoted following, somewhat more than a cult; his masterpiece is Desert Solitaire, with The Monkey Wrench Gang, about sabotage in the cause of environmental extremism, a close second. Prentiss interviews people Abbey knew and visits places he lived, creating a book that is full of humor and insight, musings and philosophy. The author describes his adventures searching for his subject's secret grave somewhere in the Southwestern deserts that were the fond focus of his voluminous writings. Prentiss also describes how the uncompromising Abbey was a complex, difficult person: full professor, Fulbright scholar, womanizer, heavy drinker, anarchist, and wilderness advocate. The inspirational renegade was also often solitary, shy, and withdrawn. In Prentiss's journey to know Abbey, he discourses engagingly on the significance of mystery, quests, travel, personalities, the desert, and humankind's relationship to nature. VERDICT A worthy contribution to the Abbey canon on the heels of David Gessner's All the Wild That Remains. Highly recommended for all interested in the American Southwest, environmentalism, and modern literature.-Henry T. Armistead, formerly with Free Lib. of Philadelphia © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

It's on a hillside, within view of roadless desert and dug deep to keep the coyotes out. Prentiss (Creative Writing/Norwich Univ.) roams sun-struck country to find a famed grave, having narrowed its location down to a Massachusetts-sized parcel.The late novelist and environmentalist Edward Abbey (1927-1989) liked to imagine that he'd be reincarnated as a turkey vulture, floating on thermals and feasting on carrion. He likely didn't imagine that he'd become the subject of exercises in creative nonfiction, but Prentiss offers a book that's part memoir, part literary appreciation, part biography, part travelogue, part jeremiad for what the rest of the world has become. These parts are of uneven value. On the biographical front, Prentiss, who never knew his subject personally, has little to add to the standard works on Abbey, many of which are also uneven. Prentiss brings value to the proposition by interviewing numerous people who did know Abbey, and he settles a few matters that will nonetheless provoke controversy precisely because they're mentioned at all: the alcoholism (what causes esophageal varices, he asks a counselor and then a doctor, and the answer comes back, "Drinking"), the lechery, the racism. The appreciation is very good: Prentiss offers fine, thoughtful readings of Abbey's writing, and he applies it judiciously to his life and ours. The reverie of the desertwell, Abbey would doubtless grin wolfishly and disdainfully at effusions such as this: "In this landscape, my tongue is fat from dehydration. My scalp and neck sunburned. Cactus needles hang from my calves. Small rivulets of blood stain my legs like badges of honor." For Abbey completists, though, they'll be divided: does Prentiss give away too many secrets in his quest for the final resting place? Those fans will want to read this book and argue about it over a desert campfire. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.