A Voice Crying in the Wilderness : Notes from a Secret Journal

For the first time in softcover, Edward Abbey's last book, a collection of unforgettable barbs of wisdom from the best-selling author of The Monkey Wrench Gang.

Notes from a Secret Journal

Edward Abbey on:

Government-"Terrorism: deadly violence against humans and other living things, usually conducted by a government against its own people."

Sex-"How to Avoid Pleurisy: Never make love to a girl named Candy on the tailgate of a half-ton Ford pickup during a chill rain in April out of Grandview Point in San Juan County, Utah."

New York City-"New Yorkers like to boast that if you can survive in New York, you can survive anywhere. But if you can survive anywhere, why live in New York?"

Literature-"Henry James. Our finest lady novelist."

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was born in Home, Pennsylvania. He received graduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of New Mexico, and attended the University of Edinburgh. He worked for a time as a forest ranger and was a committed naturalist and a fierce environmentalist; such was his anger, eloquence, and action on the subject that he has become a heroic, almost mythic figure to a whole host of environmental groups and literally millions of readers.

Abbey's career as a writer spanned four decades and encompassed a variety of genres, from essays to novels to this volume, which was completed two weeks before his death. One of his early successes was the novel The Brave Cowboy, which was made into the movie Lonely Are the Brave. His 1968 collection of essays, Desert Solitaire, became a necessary text for the new environmentalists, like the group 'Earth First,' and his rambunctious 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, a picaresque tale of environmental guerillas, which launched a national cult movement and sold over half-a-million copies. Other titles include The Journey Home, Fool's Progress, and the posthumously released Hayduke Lives!