Edward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire. Writer Larry McMurtry referred to Abbey as the “Thoreau of the American West”.
In 1956 and 1957, Abbey worked as a seasonal ranger for the United States National Park Service at Arches National Monument (now a national park), near the town of Moab, Utah. Abbey’s held the position from April to September each year, during which time he maintained trails, greeted visitors, and collected campground fees. He lived in a house trailer that had been provided to him by the Park Service, as well as in a ramada that he built himself. During his stay at Arches, Abbey accumulated a large volume of notes and sketches which later formed the basis of his first non-fiction work, Desert Solitaire.
In the 1960s Abbey worked as a seasonal park ranger at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, on the border of Arizona and Mexico.
On October 16, 1965 Abbey married Judy Pepper, who accompanied Abbey as a seasonal park ranger in the Florida Everglades, and then as a fire lookout in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Judy was separated from Abbey for extended periods of time while she attended the University of Arizona to get her master’s degree. During this time, Abbey slept with other women-something that Judy gradually became aware of, causing their marriage to suffer. On August 8, 1968 Pepper gave birth to a daughter, Susannah “Susie” Mildred Abbey. Ed purchased the family a home in Sabino Canyon, outside of Tucson. Judy died of leukemia on July 11, 1970, an event that crushed Abbey, causing him to go into “bouts of depression and loneliness” for years. It was to Judy that he dedicated his book Black Sun. However, the book was not an autobiographical novel about his relationship with Judy. Rather it was a story about a woman with whom Abbey had an affair in 1963. Abbey finished the first draft of Black Sun in 1968, two years before Judy died, and it was “a bone of contention in their marriage”.
Desert Solitaire, Abbey’s fourth book and first non-fiction work, was published in 1968. In it, he describes his stay in the canyonlands of southeastern Utah from 1956-1957. Desert Solitaire is regarded as one of the finest nature narratives in American literature, and has been compared to Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Thoreau’s Walden. In it, Abbey vividly describes the physical landscapes of Southern Utah and delights in his isolation as a back country park ranger, recounting adventures in the nearby canyon country and mountains. He also attacks what he terms the “industrial tourism” and resulting development in the national parks (“national parking lots”), rails against the Glen Canyon Dam, and comments on various other subjects.
