Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist: The Life and Legacy of Edward Abbey by James Bishop, Jr, and: Confessions of a Barbarian: selections from the journals of Edward Abbey, 1951–1989 ed. by David Petersen, and: Earth Apples: The Poetry of Edward Abbey ed. by David Petersen, and: The Serpents of Paradise: a reader by Edward Abbey (review)

EssayReview EpitaphforaDesertAnarchist: TheLifeandLegacyofEdwardAbbey. ByJames Bishop,Jr. (New York: Atheneum/Macmillan Publishing, 1994. 254 pages, $22.00.) ConfessionsofaBarbarian:selectionsfromthejournals ofEdwardAbbey, 1951-1989. Edited, with an introduction, by David Petersen. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1994. 356 pages, $24.95.) EarthApples: ThePoetryofEdwardAbbey. Edited byDavid Petersen. (NewYork: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. 112 pages, $14.95.) The Serpents ofParadise: a reader. By Edward Abbey, edited byJohn Macrae. (New York: Henry Holt &Co., 1995. 400 pages, $25.00.) In the early seventies, I moved to an apartment in a ramshackle house in Logan, Utah. The previous tenantwas namedAbbey, and he leftitamess. When his mail showed up in mybox, Iasked the Persian landladywhat to do. She directed me to a house on the next block. “He’s awriter, a nice guy,”she said, “but that woman." Iwalked over, shy and lanky, and he opened the door, lanky and shy. There was no shock of recognition. He asked ifIwanted a beer, and we sat on the back steps while he read hismail. Then aface thrustout ofthe door, gorgeouslyangry. ‘Youwere helping me with the housework,”she said, with flourishes. He shrugged over his mail and his beer. She let the door slam, and there were howls and crashes. He didn’t even look up, and so I left. Myprofessor, Tom Lyon, took the grave riskofloaning me his copy ofDesertSolitaire, the firsttime I’d readabook bysomeone I’d met.And Ilikedit, more—loved it. Ofall the lives I could imagine, Edward Abbey’s seemed the best. So Iworked hard at my writing, and found a rangerjob, and styled myselfan anarchist, which suited me rather well. We talked a few times at his readings, and at a party in Arches, and in Bluff, Utah, when he was driving to Pennsylvania. But Edward Abbey and I were never friends. I preferred his books, and the figure in them, to myglimpses of the man himself. In print, he didn’t seem shy, and he wrote, by my count, seventeen books, each marked by his bold presence. I now recognize that self-revelation is a complex act: we throw offour clothes and still tell lies. And that awriter’s rage to be known coexists with an urge to hide, to dissemble, and to wear a mask. Ed Abbey died in 1989, but his doppelgangerlives on in the public mind. Since his death, his intimate friends seem to have multiplied, along with his celebrity, making a wave of books inevitable. FirstoutwasEpitaphforaDesertAnarchist, graced byawonderful cover portrait. AsJames Bishop,Jr. prefaces it: “We shook hands once, but I never knew him personally, and I have mixed feelings about that. I would have liked to argue with 290 Western American Literature him over cheap cigars and good tequilla Isic] bya blazing river campfire under a skyfull of stars.” But no one who has examined an empty bottle of Sauza Comemorativounder a fastrisingJuly sun could ever misspell tequila, an ominous start.Andwhile Epitaphisnot quite astarbiography, it’sdefinitelyafan'sbook.Ajournalist, Bishop takesajumble ofme-andEd tales, short takes, and hasty conclusions, and makes them genuinely readable. Butthe book is hurt byhurried composition: . . . he took his first seasonal job with the National Park Service at Arches National Monument, then a remote outpost with few visitors. High above the desert, in a tower with sixty steps, he poured himself into honing his private journals. (114) Forget the mixed metaphor. AtArches, there isnofire tower, nor everwas.And how can a nonexistent fire tower have sixtysteps? Is that a koari? Or an editor’sgoof. (Acts of God notwithstanding, Mr. Bishop must have read his own proofs.) A bookseller showed me my elegy, on p. 193, in fractured form. After Ifumed over linebreaks and a spurious capital F, I noticed that (like tequila) my name was misspelled. After my letters went unanswered, my agent extracted a promise to fix it in the paper­ back. Besides inaccuracy and discourtesy, a further problem lurks in Bishop’s use of his sources. Though quoted onlyonce in Epitaph,Ann Ronald’s TheNexuWestofEdwardAbbey (University of New Mexico Press, 1982) provides considerable basis for Bishop’s evalua­ tions. Likewise, otherAbbey scholars or friends may deserve more note than they find in his pages. While Bishop’s admiration may have been real, this book...