Hayduke Lives!

Damn fine novel. A comabtive and comic work from the "Desert Anarchist". Find out where all that "Hayduke Lives!" grafiti is coming from.

The name Edward Abbey is a foul couple of words for some, and is followed by foul language off the tongue of the same people. But, it shouldn't...both for his great body writings and for his fierce appreciation for everything that makes the American West great. "The Monkey Wrench Gang" and its sequel "Hayduke Lives" are classic American Literature as well as important social commentary on who we are and what should matter to us as a society and a country. (This review is for both books so might be a bit longer than usual.) Yes, Abbey was an environmentalist; but, a he was also flawed just as we all are in this area - when he was younger on his first visit to the Grand Canyon, he rolled a tire over the edge because he could. He already appreciated the American West, but the human side of him did it anyway. Yes, Abbey was a curmudgeon; but, it worked - he got the attention of everyone, on both sides of any issue. With "The Monkey Wrench Gang", Abbey spun a fantastic tale of a hodgepodge band of characters that were bound by a love for the west, and distaste for anything that they saw as ruining it. Bonnie Abbzug, the exile from the east who couldn't stand cheap talk and always wanted action; she found a place in the canyons of the Southwest where one could hear her own thoughts - unlike the canyons of New York that she fled. Doc Sarvis, M.D., a doctor with a passion for his hobby - the burning of any billboard that ruined everyone's view of the landscape (which were pretty much all of them). Seldom Seen Smith, a few wives, a Colorado River Boatman, and a few steps ahead of the Bishop...'nuff said. And then there is George Washington Hayduke III...this former Green Beret will not stop until he gets to the bottom of who is messing with his desert; and he intends to put a stop to it. I had a college professor like Hayduke. At its heart, "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is a buddy movie written in words' a buddy movie about the American West. An American West that is being overrun by those fleeing the east and looking for more space and a better life, but cannot but help but bring everything wrong with where they are coming from with them; at the same time, this is a book about those entrenched in the west for generations that can't control themselves when it comes to growth, progress, and the American Way: GREED. This is a book about those who care enough about the human race to actually do something to keep it from destroying itself. This is a book about the self-determined people of the west; a group that sometimes loses its way - a fear of the decadence of East (and California), but who can't help but let a little greed get in they way of their way of live as they build and build and build to accommodate the every expanding needs of the new exiles from more crowded locales. "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is a book about a system gone wrong and a band of idealists looking for a way to head it off at the pass before it plummets over the edge into the abyss.

Read "The Monkey Wrench Gang" first - that is where the characters are developed. Unfortunately, Abbey wastes our time in the first few chapters of this novel trying to redevelop them. However, "Hayduke Lives" recovers with a bout against the all-encompassing American Goliath. When you realize that your government is against your best interests with your national treasures (NPS = National Parking Lot Service), then you will know it is time to pick up the monkey wrench. For example, Yosemite National Park just cut an acre of trees for new development on the valley floor after declaring them a "fire hazard." I am pro-Abbey and a resident of the American Southwest, also a kindred spirit. His "Rule #1 'Don't get caught.'" is also my own. Carry on for the sake of all things living. Mike Zinsley, author of The Rapture of the Deep

Back in the old college days we as a class read some of Edward Abbey's novels from "Desert Solitare" to "Fire on the Mountain". And only reading it for a classroom assignment, I have to dig it back up and re-read it again after reading "Heyduke Lives". Being a native of the Four Corners area, a true native. Not those so called "native wanna be's" who claim to be from there. I can relate to the characters in Heyduke Lives! My favorite character though has to be Erika, the savy euro-proeco fem hottie stood out along with those of Heyduke himself. The desert of Utah and Arizona will be home to me and Ed as we are the stewards of this everlasting land. Lastly, from the Author himself wrote a warning: "Anyone who takes this book seriously will be shot. Anyone who does not take it seriously will be buried alive by a Mitsubishi bulldoser".

Abbey's final novel is a worthy sequel to the Monkey Wrench Gang. Hayduke's stunts are the most outrageous Ed has cooked up by far. The climax and the grand finale should win the approval of any true Abbey fan. HAYDUKE LIVES!