Edward Abbey called The Monkey Wrench Gang a "comic extravaganza," which it is, although one with a clear, serious message: to protect the American wilderness from the forces of commercial enterprise. The story centers on George Hayduke, an ex-Green Beret and Vietnam vet, who returns to the Southwestern desert after the war to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a whitewater rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with three others who share his indignation and want to do something about it: feminist saboteur and Bronx exile Bonnie...
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This book is different from any other Edward Abbey book. It includes essays, travel pieces and fictions to reveal Ed's life directly, in his own words.

The selections gathered here are arranged chronologically by incident, not by date of publication, to offer Edward Abbey's life from the time he was the boy called Ned in Home, Pennsylvania, until his death in Tucson at age 62. A short note introduces each of the four parts of the book and attempts to identify what's happening in the author's life at the time. When relevant, some details of publishing history are provided.

" Extraordinarily moving. Her voice is clear, assured, varied, and utterly her own."
--A. Alvarez, The New York Review of Books

" The rhyme is ingenious, the humor saucy and unsparing, and the author clearly takes a delight in perversity, in an inversion of the expected...
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"Watership Down" is a remarkable tale of exile and survival, of heroism and leadership...t...
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Meineck's translation is faithful and supple; the language employed is modern without betraying the grandeur and complexity--particularly the images--of the Aeschylean text. After reading this translation, one has but one further wish: to see it and hear it at Delphi, Epidaurus or Syracuse. --Herman Van Looy, L'Antiquite Classique