Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) 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. The Monkey Wrench Gang concerns the use of sabotage to protest environmentally damaging activities in the Southwestern United States, and was so influential that the term “monkeywrench” has come to mean, besides sabotage and damage to machines, any sabotage, activism, law-making, or law-breaking to preserve wilderness, wild spaces and ecosystems.
Abbey enlisted in the Army and served from June 1945 to February 1947. According to the National Personnel Records Center only his damaged DD 214 survived the catastrophic 1973 NPRC fire, where an estimated 16,000,000 to 18,000,000 military personnel records were destroyed by fire and water damage.
Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania on January 29, 1927, Abbey’s mother was a schoolteacher and a church organist. His father was a socialist, anarchist, and atheist. Between his junior and senior year in high school Abbey traveled across the American southwest. At age 17, by foot, bus, hitchhiking, and train hopping, he fell in love with the desert country of the Four Corners region of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. “In the summer of 1944…for me it was love at first sight–a total passion which has never left me….a magical vision, a legend come true.”
Drafted into the Army, although Abbey requested a clerk typist MOS he served 6 months stateside, then 11 months and ten days in Italy as a motorcycle MP.
“With the infantry in Italy I shot rats, bullied terrified chickens, ordered people around. Almost fell into Vesuvius. Got drunk in the Toledo area of Naples and made a big row. Went AWOL once, for two days, in Milan. Stole a .45 from the army. Rode a motorcycle. Once arrested a colonel.” (Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989).
Promoted twice, for opposing authority Abbey was twice demoted. Receiving his honorable discharge in the mail, he scrawled “Return to Sender” on the envelope. His military experience left him with a distrust for institutions and regulations which influenced his writing throughout his career and strengthened his anarchist beliefs.
Attending the University of New Mexico on the G.I. Bill, Abbey earned a B.A. in philosophy and English in 1951, and a master’s degree in philosophy in 1956. As an undergraduate he edited the student newspaper, and published an article titled “Some Implications of Anarchy.” His letters urging people to rid themselves of their draft cards, and objecting to a peace time draft, caught the attention of the FBI.
“Edward Abbey is against war and military,” an agent wrote in a file kept on him. Throughout his life the bureau recorded his movements and interviewed many people who knew him. When Abbey learned of this, “I’d be insulted if they weren’t watching me,” he said.
FBI file 1, FBI file 2, FBI file 3.
After graduating from college Abbey spent a year at Edinburgh University as a Fulbright scholar. His master’s thesis explored anarchism and the morality of violence, asking the two questions: “To what extent is the current association between anarchism and violence warranted?” and “In so far as the association is a valid one, what arguments have the anarchists presented, explicitly or implicitly, to justify the use of violence?” Upon receiving his master’s degree, Abbey spent 1957 at Stanford University on a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship.
In 1956 and 1957 Abbey worked seasonally as a Park Service ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah, maintaining trails, greeting visitors, and collecting campground fees. He lived in a Park Service house trailer as well as in a wood lean to he built himself. His notes and sketches written during this time formed 
the basis of Desert Solitaire.
In the 1960s Abbey was a seasonal park ranger at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, on the border of Arizona and Mexico. In 1961, the movie version of his second novel, The Brave Cowboy, with screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, was shot on location in New Mexico. Kirk Douglas, who had purchased the novel’s screen rights, produced and starred in the film, released in 1962 as Lonely Are the Brave. In 1981, his third novel, Fire on the Mountain, was also adapted into a TV movie by the same title.
On October 16, 1965 Abbey married Judy Pepper, who accompanied him as a seasonal park ranger in the Florida Everglades, and then as a fire lookout in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Abbey’s extra marital affairs strained the marriage. When Pepper died from leukemia in 1970 Abbey experienced bouts of loneliness and depression for years.
Desert Solitaire, Abbey’s fourth book and first non-fiction work, was published in 1968. Regarded as one of the finest nature narratives in American literature, Abbey vividly describes the physical landscapes of Southern Utah and delights in his isolation as a backcountry park ranger, recounting adventures in the nearby canyon country and mountains. He also attacks the “industrial tourism” in the national parks (“national parking lots”), rails against the Glen Canyon Dam, and comments on various other subjects.
Feeling anxious about the future as he prepared to leave his beloved Arches for the off-season, “When I return will it be the same?” Abbey wrote in the books final passage. “Will I be the same? Will anything ever be quite the same again? If I return.”
In 1984 Abbey taught courses in creative writing and hospitality management at the University of Arizona, and worked on a novel. Regarding his writing style, “I write in a deliberately provocative and outrageous manner because I like to startle people. I hope to wake up people. I have no desire to simply soothe or please. I would rather risk making people angry than putting them to sleep. And I try to write in a style that’s entertaining as well as provocative. It’s hard for me to stay serious for more than half a page at a time.”
Abbey felt that it was the duty of all authors to “speak the truth— especially unpopular truth. Especially truth that offends the powerful, the rich, the well-established, the traditional, the mythic.” He died on March 14, 1989, at the age of 62, from esophageal bleeding, in his home in Tucson, Arizona. Married five times, he is survived by two daughters, Susannah and Becky; and three sons, Joshua, Aaron and Benjamin.
“I want my body to help fertilize the growth of a cactus or cliff rose or sagebrush or tree. No formal speeches desired, though the deceased will not interfere if someone feels the urge. But keep it all simple and brief.” Abbey also requested gunfire and bagpipe music, a cheerful and raucous wake, “and a flood of beer and booze! Lots of singing, dancing, talking, hollering, laughing, and lovemaking.”
“The last time Ed smiled was when I told him where he was going to be buried,” recalled Doug Peacock, one of Abbey’s close friends, and the inspiration for Hayduke in The Monkey Wrench Gang.* On the day Abbey died, Peacock, along with Jack Loeffler, his father-in-law Tom Cartwright, and his brother-in-law Steve Prescott, wrapped Abbey’s body in his blue sleeping bag, packed it with dry ice, and loaded him into Loeffler’s Chevy pickup. After stopping at a liquor store in Tucson for five cases of beer, and some whiskey to pour on the grave, they drove off into the desert. The men searched for the right spot the entire next day and finally turned down a long rutted road, drove to the end, and began digging. That night they buried Ed and toasted the life of America’s prickliest and most outspoken environmentalist.
Abbey’s body was likely buried in the Cabeza Prieta Desert in Pima County, Arizona. His friends carved a marker on a nearby stone.
In late March, about 200 friends of Abbey’s gathered near the Saguaro National Monument near Tucson and held the wake he requested. A second, much larger wake was held in May, just outside his beloved Arches National Park. Among the speakers were Terry Tempest Williams and Wendell Berry.
___________________
*In 2020 Medic traded emails with Doug Peacock. At one point I asked Doug if he knew Bob Brack, 5th Special Forces, ’66 –’68. We’d met at a Vet Center therapy group in Newark, NJ in 2000. Doug said yes, he’d led Bob on a patrol. I located several online photos of Bob in Vietnam and sent them to Doug.
Sources
WIKIPEDIA
National Personnel Records Center Fire
Trail Blazer / The Guardian / a profile of Edward Abbey
The Balancing of Arches / New York Times / an essay/meditation on trekking and Abbey
Desert Solitare / The New York Times
Forever Wild, Jason Daley, Outside (an account of Abbey’s burial)
Burying Edward Abbey: The Last Defiance, AZ Central (an account of Abbey’s burial)
Lonely Are the Brave / movie trailer
Wrenched / a documentary on Abbey
A Voice in the Wilderness / a documentary on Abbey
Doug Peacock’s website
Grizzly Years / Doug Peacock / Los Angeles Times review
Edward Abbey
Abbey enlisted in the Army and served from June 1945 to February 1947. According to the National Personnel Records Center only his damaged DD 214 survived the catastrophic 1973 NPRC fire, where an estimated 16,000,000 to 18,000,000 military personnel records were destroyed by fire and water damage.
Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania on January 29, 1927, Abbey’s mother was a schoolteacher and a church organist. His father was a socialist, anarchist, and atheist. Between his junior and senior year in high school Abbey traveled across the American southwest. At age 17, by foot, bus, hitchhiking, and train hopping, he fell in love with the desert country of the Four Corners region of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. “In the summer of 1944…for me it was love at first sight–a total passion which has never left me….a magical vision, a legend come true.”
Drafted into the Army, although Abbey requested a clerk typist MOS he served 6 months stateside, then 11 months and ten days in Italy as a motorcycle MP.
“With the infantry in Italy I shot rats, bullied terrified chickens, ordered people around. Almost fell into Vesuvius. Got drunk in the Toledo area of Naples and made a big row. Went AWOL once, for two days, in Milan. Stole a .45 from the army. Rode a motorcycle. Once arrested a colonel.” (Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989).
Promoted twice, for opposing authority Abbey was twice demoted. Receiving his honorable discharge in the mail, he scrawled “Return to Sender” on the envelope. His military experience left him with a distrust for institutions and regulations which influenced his writing throughout his career and strengthened his anarchist beliefs.
Attending the University of New Mexico on the G.I. Bill, Abbey earned a B.A. in philosophy and English in 1951, and a master’s degree in philosophy in 1956. As an undergraduate he edited the student newspaper, and published an article titled “Some Implications of Anarchy.” His letters urging people to rid themselves of their draft cards, and objecting to a peace time draft, caught the attention of the FBI.
“Edward Abbey is against war and military,” an agent wrote in a file kept on him. Throughout his life the bureau recorded his movements and interviewed many people who knew him. When Abbey learned of this, “I’d be insulted if they weren’t watching me,” he said.
FBI file 1, FBI file 2, FBI file 3.
After graduating from college Abbey spent a year at Edinburgh University as a Fulbright scholar. His master’s thesis explored anarchism and the morality of violence, asking the two questions: “To what extent is the current association between anarchism and violence warranted?” and “In so far as the association is a valid one, what arguments have the anarchists presented, explicitly or implicitly, to justify the use of violence?” Upon receiving his master’s degree, Abbey spent 1957 at Stanford University on a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship.
In 1956 and 1957 Abbey worked seasonally as a Park Service ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah, maintaining trails, greeting visitors, and collecting campground fees. He lived in a Park Service house trailer as well as in a wood lean to he built himself. His notes and sketches written during this time formed
the basis of Desert Solitaire.
In the 1960s Abbey was a seasonal park ranger at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, on the border of Arizona and Mexico. In 1961, the movie version of his second novel, The Brave Cowboy, with screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, was shot on location in New Mexico. Kirk Douglas, who had purchased the novel’s screen rights, produced and starred in the film, released in 1962 as Lonely Are the Brave. In 1981, his third novel, Fire on the Mountain, was also adapted into a TV movie by the same title.
On October 16, 1965 Abbey married Judy Pepper, who accompanied him as a seasonal park ranger in the Florida Everglades, and then as a fire lookout in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Abbey’s extra marital affairs strained the marriage. When Pepper died from leukemia in 1970 Abbey experienced bouts of loneliness and depression for years.
Desert Solitaire, Abbey’s fourth book and first non-fiction work, was published in 1968. Regarded as one of the finest nature narratives in American literature, Abbey vividly describes the physical landscapes of Southern Utah and delights in his isolation as a backcountry park ranger, recounting adventures in the nearby canyon country and mountains. He also attacks the “industrial tourism” in the national parks (“national parking lots”), rails against the Glen Canyon Dam, and comments on various other subjects.
Feeling anxious about the future as he prepared to leave his beloved Arches for the off-season, “When I return will it be the same?” Abbey wrote in the books final passage. “Will I be the same? Will anything ever be quite the same again? If I return.”
In 1984 Abbey taught courses in creative writing and hospitality management at the University of Arizona, and worked on a novel. Regarding his writing style, “I write in a deliberately provocative and outrageous manner because I like to startle people. I hope to wake up people. I have no desire to simply soothe or please. I would rather risk making people angry than putting them to sleep. And I try to write in a style that’s entertaining as well as provocative. It’s hard for me to stay serious for more than half a page at a time.”
“I want my body to help fertilize the growth of a cactus or cliff rose or sagebrush or tree. No formal speeches desired, though the deceased will not interfere if someone feels the urge. But keep it all simple and brief.” Abbey also requested gunfire and bagpipe music, a cheerful and raucous wake, “and a flood of beer and booze! Lots of singing, dancing, talking, hollering, laughing, and lovemaking.”
“The last time Ed smiled was when I told him where he was going to be buried,” recalled Doug Peacock, one of Abbey’s close friends, and the inspiration for Hayduke in The Monkey Wrench Gang.* On the day Abbey died, Peacock, along with Jack Loeffler, his father-in-law Tom Cartwright, and his brother-in-law Steve Prescott, wrapped Abbey’s body in his blue sleeping bag, packed it with dry ice, and loaded him into Loeffler’s Chevy pickup. After stopping at a liquor store in Tucson for five cases of beer, and some whiskey to pour on the grave, they drove off into the desert. The men searched for the right spot the entire next day and finally turned down a long rutted road, drove to the end, and began digging. That night they buried Ed and toasted the life of America’s prickliest and most outspoken environmentalist.
In late March, about 200 friends of Abbey’s gathered near the Saguaro National Monument near Tucson and held the wake he requested. A second, much larger wake was held in May, just outside his beloved Arches National Park. Among the speakers were Terry Tempest Williams and Wendell Berry.
___________________
*In 2020 Medic traded emails with Doug Peacock. At one point I asked Doug if he knew Bob Brack, 5th Special Forces, ’66 –’68. We’d met at a Vet Center therapy group in Newark, NJ in 2000. Doug said yes, he’d led Bob on a patrol. I located several online photos of Bob in Vietnam and sent them to Doug.
Sources
WIKIPEDIA
National Personnel Records Center Fire
Trail Blazer / The Guardian / a profile of Edward Abbey
The Balancing of Arches / New York Times / an essay/meditation on trekking and Abbey
Desert Solitare / The New York Times
Forever Wild, Jason Daley, Outside (an account of Abbey’s burial)
Burying Edward Abbey: The Last Defiance, AZ Central (an account of Abbey’s burial)
Lonely Are the Brave / movie trailer
Wrenched / a documentary on Abbey
A Voice in the Wilderness / a documentary on Abbey
Doug Peacock’s website
Grizzly Years / Doug Peacock / Los Angeles Times review