Edward Abbey, aka Cactus Ed
Back in 2018, I did a post on Edward Abbey’s funeral, if you want to call it that. No hearse, no flowers, no singing. Four friends threw his body in a pickup and drove off into the remotest parts of New Mexico, to bury him in an unmarked, secret grave. It was the way Abbey’s wanted it to be.
Photo credit: Kirk McKay LA Times
That post has never been popular, and yet I firmly believe Ed Abbey, aka Cactus Ed, richly deserves a follow-up. He may well be the most important environmentalist of the last century. During his life he was called a great many things – an anarchist, arrogant, an iconoclast, confrontational, controversial, shy, a racist, a misogynist, misanthropic, a loner, a drunk, a desert rat, a gifted writer, a visionary, profoundly insightful, bitingly sarcastic, incendiary, awe-inspiring, fearless, untamable, forever ready to fire a salvo across your bow, and forever devoted to our planet.
Desert Solitaire ( A Season in the Wilderness) is his most widely loved book. Published in 1968 by McGraw Hill, it chronicles Cactus Ed’s time as park ranger in Utah’s Arch National Monument. Living in a trailer with frying pan, bacon, eggs, mice, a British Webley 45 revolver, and a rattlesnake under the front steps, Abbey reveals the beauty and spirit of the desert. Brilliantly done, the New Yorker called it “An American Master Piece, A Forceful Encounter with a man of Character and Courage”. The New York Times reviewer called it “Like a ride on a bucking bronco….deeply poetic… set in lean racing prose…of power and beauty”
Is your interest perked? You can find a paperback at a reasonable price – ten bucks? On the other hand, a first edition, hardbound with dust jacket, could go anywhere from $500 to $3,000, depending on condition and whether it’s a first or later printing. I have never seen a signed first edition, for sale. Does it exist?
