Edward Abbey – författare

From stories about cattlemen, fellow critics, his beloved desert, cities, and technocrats to thoughts on sin and redemption, this is one of our most treasured writers at the height of his powers in One Life at a Time, Please.Edward Abbey died in 1989—too soon, some said. "And where have the years gone?" Abbey wrote, "why, into the usual vices of the romantic realist: into sloth and melancholy, love and marriage and the begetting of children, into the strenuous maneuvers of earning a living without living to earn, into travel and play and music and drink and talk and laughter, into saving the world—but saving the world was only a hobby. Into watching cloud formations float across our planetary skies. But mostly into sloth and melancholy. And I don''t regret a moment of it."

Jonathan Troy is a brilliant, beautiful, intensely romantic, selfish and irresponsible (but never impossible) hero. Despite his youth, he is a born leader who, like a colossus, dominates the people who come into his life, whether they have sought him out or have been sought after by him. There is his lonely, one-eyed father whose radical activity for the Industrial Workers of the World leads to a shattering climax in which Jonathan knows his own fidelity has somehow been vitally involved. There is Etheline, whose body is irresistibly attractive-and whom Jonathan successfully seduces. There is Leafy who inspires his love and alone can discipline him. There is Feathersmith, the effeminate teacher, who encourages Jonathan''s sensitivity to the poetic, and Fatgut, the pathological liar, who is foil both for Jonathan''s friendship and his rage. In a way, Jonathan betrays them all, but his greatest, final betrayal is perhaps of himself.

Edward Abbey writes with perception that measures the mood and experiences of his characters in every dimension. Beneath the facade of callous brutality lies the real Jonathan, finely sensitive and introspective. The author never loses touch with this spirit on Jonathan''s quest, and the cumulative effect becomes overwhelming. This harsh, powerful, disturbing story is an extraordinary achievement for any novel, much less a first one.

About the author

Edward Abbey was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, in 1927. Eight months before his 18th birthday, when he would be faced with being drafted into the U.S. Military, Abbey decided to explore the American southwest. He traveled by foot, bus, hitchhiking, and freight train hopping.

His best-known works include Desert Solitaire, a non-fiction autobiographical account of his time as a park ranger at Arches National Park considered to be an iconic work of nature writing and a staple of early environmentalist writing; the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by environmentalists and groups defending nature by various means, also called eco-warriors.

JONATHAN TROY was begun as a creative writing project and is Edward Abbey''s first novel.