From Powells.com
Our favorite books of the year.
Synopses & Reviews
Archetypal wild man Edward Abbey and proper, dedicated Wallace Stegner left their footprints all over the western landscape. Now, the award-winning nature writer David Gessner follows the ghosts of these two remarkable writer-environmentalists — from Stegner's birthplace in Saskatchewan to the site of Abbey's pilgrimages to Arches — braiding their stories and asking how they speak to the lives of all those who care about the West. What is the future of a region beset by droughts and fires, by fracking and drilling? What should be done about an ever-increasing population that seems to be in the process of loving the West to death? How might two environmental thinkers with radically different personalities — a competent, mature advocate (Stegner) and a monkey-wrenching anarchist (Abbey) — have responded to the crisis? Gessner takes us on an inspiring, entertaining journey as he renews his own commitment to cultivating a meaningful relationship with the wild, confronting American consumption, and fighting environmental injustice.
Review
"Two extraordinary men and one remarkable book. To understand how we understand the natural world, you need to read this book." Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth
Review
"An excellent study of two difficult men." Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove and The Last Kind Words Saloon
Review
"A travel book, yes, a literary memoir, yes, and a profound meditation on our myths and shadows. Anyone who loves the American West will be enraptured by this book. It is a wonderful piece of work." Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Hummingbird's Daughter and Queen of America
Review
"This book rubs Abbey and Stegner's history in the dust and sand so beloved to them, posing these two late icons among voices, landscapes, and arguments that endure in western wilderness, deftly creating a larger geographic chronicle." Craig Childs, author of House of Rain and Apocalyptic Planet
Review
"Praise David Gessner for reawakening us, in these climactically challenged times, to the wisdom of our two most venerated literary grandfathers of the American West, to remind us of our wilder longings, to incite in us a fury, that we might act — even now — to defend all the wild that remains." Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness and Contents May Have Shifted
Review
"To understand the truth of the Desert West, read Stegner. To understand one writer's emotional response to that desert and to our thoughtless destruction of wilderness, read Abbey. To understand the two writers as men of their times — and ours — read Gessner: for his honesty, compassion, humility, scholarship, and sensibility." Stephen Trimble, author of Bargaining for Eden
Synopsis
An homage to the West and to two great writers who set the standard for all who celebrate and defend it.
Video
About the Author
David Gessner is the award-winning author of Return of the Osprey, My Green Manifesto, The Tarball Chronicles, and other books. He currently lives and teaches in Wilmington, North Carolina.