Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
by Edward Abbey

Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
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Book Summary Information

Author: Edward Abbey
Editor: David Petersen
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-28
ISBN: 1571312854
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Book Reviews of Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Book Review: Interesting collection of letters
Summary: 3 Stars

This book collects the letters of Edward Abbey, author and provocateur. If you don't know and enjoy his books such as "Desert Solitaire" or "The Monkey Wrench Gang," you should read those first. If you've read his books and want more Ed, then this is the book for you.

The letters are arranged chronologically but fall into a few recurring categories. He writes often to his agents and his publishers, both about money and about his works in progress. You see glimpses of how Ed works through these letters. He also wrote a large number of letters to various newspapers, some under pseudonyms. He wrote, of course, many letters to his friends, and these are surprisingly blunt. I sometimes marveled that he had any friends left. There are surprisingly few letters to his family, even though his oldest children lived some distance from him over the years covered in these letters. His family side does not come across at all well, except for pride in his very young children with fifth wife.

These short letters are, to varying degrees, pithy, insightful, iconoclastic and funny. They show some different sides of Edward Abbey but won't really surprise any fans of his other books.

[Three stars because the book has a pretty narrow audience; it's probably a four star book for hardcore Abbey fans.]

Summary of Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

But hell, I do like to write letters. Much easier than writing books." And write letters Ed Abbey did. In his famous - or infamous - 45-year career, Abbey's cards and letters became as legendary as his books for their wit, vitriol, and ability to speak truth to power. Published here for the first time, the letters offer a fascinating, often hilarious glimpse into the mind of one of America's most iconoclastic and beloved authors. No subject was too banal, too arcane, or too deep for Abbey to expound on: sex, cheerleaders, Mormons, Aspen, and the Bond girls are covered as gleefully as Stegner, Dylan, Chomsky, Buddhism, and betrayal. Whether scolding an editor to simplify ("I've had to waste hours erasing that storm of fly-shit on the typescript") or skewering the chicken-hawk proponents of the war in Vietnam, Abbey's righteous indignation gives hope and inspiration to a generation that desperately needs both.

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