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Review of Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave BROOKE WONDERS

Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward him . . . he must have stared at the desert Prentiss hard questions about life and Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave, by sun for hundreds of days . . . Jack starts happiness, which lets us see his inner Sean Prentiss, University of New Mexico out slowly, his voice gentle, like the sun struggle to make peace with a middle- Press, 2015, 240p, paperback $21.95. at dawn. ‘When I think about Brother class Midwestern life in which he feels Ed, I think about how he had a beauti- trapped. This theme of male friendship Edward Abbey was a man of con- ful mind . . . His huge contribution is runs throughout the book, as Haus and tradictions. An environmentalist whose having philosophically melded anarchist Prentiss’s story parallels Abbey’s. Ulti- most famous works promoted littering thought with environmentalist thought. mately the memoir suggests that Abbey’s (Desert Solitaire) and methods for turn- Plus the fact he truly was the best major contribution is less well-known ing bulldozers into scrap (The Monkey friend I’ve ever had’” (54). Or as in an than the legacy of his environmental Wrench Gang), Abbey remains a polariz- interview with Doug Peacock where, in writing: the quality of friendships that ing figure. Sean Prentiss’s book,Finding describing Abbey’s feelings about Desert speak to a life well-lived is the true object Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey Solitaire, Doug does “his Edward Abbey of Prentiss’s quest. and His Hidden Desert Grave, is both impression, which sounds like a nasally In Prentiss’s hands, Edward Abbey a biography of Abbey and a memoir of professor—‘I never had to work a day in emerges in all his infuriating complex- Prentiss. It is a story of being a young my life after that book was published’” ity. The man was an inveterate racist and white man in America struggling to find (170). Prentiss lets us hear the voices of sexist. He had nothing good to say about a positive narrative of self-making in a Abbey’s friends in all their big-hearted immigrants, or any of his five wives. world riven by racism and misogyny. vivacity: a real gift, now that we can no Prentiss struggles with the negative For Prentiss, environmentalism of- longer hear the voice of the man himself truths he unveils by considering how fers a means of identity formation. It is (apparently, it was nasal). they transcend any individual’s story. The through a love of wilderness and place Prentiss takes pains to capture his book raises the specter of masculinity— that he finds a version of himself that interviewees’ memories of Abbey, but without a new frontier to conquer, with- can be happy. also their own idiosyncracies, and out an unspoiled American West, what Edward Abbey was not a happy man, render them with the same love and does it mean to be an American man? in Prentiss’s telling. A charismatic, care as Abbey himself once did. In the Yes, the book risks whitewashing Abbey’s argumentative, and opinionated man, Doug Peacock interview, Prentiss shows sordid history, but ultimately avoids this certainly, but also someone who spent Doug’s easy laugh in a series of descrip- by doing what all great nonfiction must: his life searching for meaning—at the tions: “Doug breaks into that beautiful it lingers in a space of doubt, refusing bottom of a bottle, at the bottom of a laugh of his, a laugh that travels years of to commend Abbey’s bad behavior—or canyon, at the bottom of a plot—and memory” (168); “Doug breaks into a sad idealized American masculinity, for never quite finding it. Yet, for all that, laugh and sips from his blue mug,” and that matter—while also refusing to deny this is not an unhappy book, as Pren- “Doug has so many types of laughter Abbey’s legacy. This mirrors Prentiss’s tiss is, like his idol Abbey, a terrifically inside him. More than I expected” (176). life, which is also in stasis as he vacillates charismatic storyteller. The memoir is The prose is plainspoken but the final about quitting his job to head West. meditative but highly readable. Its most observation points to the unspoken: Midway through the book, Prentiss compelling chapters include a series of this is a man with whom Edward Ab- interviews Ken Sleight, the man who interviews Prentiss conducted with the bey shared many kinds of laughter, and Abbey used as the basis for Seldom Seen still-living members of Abbey’s Mon- through Prentiss, so can we. Smith, a main character in The Monkey key Wrench Gang: Jack Loeffler and The book is structured as a quest Wrench Gang. About Abbey, Ken says, Doug Peacock, among others. Abbey narrative: Prentiss seeks Abbey’s hidden “His words were his monkey wrench. fictionalized them and brought them to grave. The interviews read like chess Thank God for them” (121).The same life as characters; Prentiss does much games, as Prentiss attempts to ferret out could be said of Prentiss’s debut. In the same thing here, selectively editing what his interviewees wish to conceal: taking a monkey wrench to the myth of the interviews so as to capture these the grave’s location. However, Prentiss American masculinity, Prentiss has writ- larger-than-life figures live on the page. is not alone on his journey. His child- ten a memoir that will stand as one of the About Jack, Prentiss writes, “[His eyes hood friend, Haus, is along for the ride. best books yet written on the enigmatic narrow] as if the sun shines hard on Haus, a professor and philosopher, asks Ed Abbey. ☐

44 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW Summer 2016