Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Touching on civil rights, the environment, Vietnam, immigration, technology, pop culture, industrialism and nearly anything else that has been a hot-button issue since the mid-20th Century, Abbey's letters, collected here and presented in chronological order, offer not only an intriguing portrait of Abbey the writer and individualist, but of the political state of the nation. By turns lucid and measured, warm and intimate, or bitingly cruel (and wickedly funny), Abbey displays a staggering range of concerns, and Abbey's fans will find these missives no less stinging and eloquent than his best fiction. Knowledge of Abbey's work (The Monkey Wrench Gang; Desert Solitaire, etc.) helps put the letters and their author in perspective, though readers unacquainted with Abbey's career may find this a useful introduction.