Rarely is there a book that compels me to head for the library nearly as much as the trailhead. David Gessner’s All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West is a perfect example of such a book and is an entertaining and entrancing mix of journalism, geography, literary analysis, and travelogue. These attributes make it both an excellent work in its own right as well as a wonderful introduction to the books and philosophies of Wallace Stegner and Edward Abbey and the history and future of the Western landscape and the people who inhabit, explore, and exploit it.

All the Wild That Remains is an informational read that doesn't seem overly academic.

Reading All the Wild That Remains

While I was familiar with Edward Abbey from reading Desert Solitaire when it was assigned by a college professor in a class on landscapes and literature and then delving into his work on my own, I was fairly ignorant about Wallace Stegner before reading All the Wild That Remains. Needless to say, after reading this book rectifying my ignorance in regard to Stegner is now a priority. Consuming his novels and non-fiction works after the in-depth introduction, analysis and overview provided by this book will undoubtedly make that task more fruitful.

Gessner’s insight into Abbey’s works and visiting the landscapes Abbey held dear and focused on his work, such as with a river trip down the San Juan River and a visit to Arches National Park, as well as visiting those who knew him provides a valuable depth to the author and allows for more of holistic view than allowed for most biographies. Gessner visited Abbey’s hometown during his rather extensive research travels for the book and read the manuscripts, journals and correspondence housed at the University of Arizona special collections library as part of his attempt to better understand the author. I found his research into Abbey to be particularly productive and also appreciated his willingness to objectively assess some of the more controversial public stances of Abbey, particularly his thoughts on immigration and Latin America.

As noted in the title, Stegner and Abbey are major players in this book as well as the landscape of the American West. The author’s travels through the West for this book provide a multitude of anecdotes, as well as some humor, that introduce greater themes and topics. Climate change, and the increasing frequency and destruction of forest fires, and the extractive industries, such as oil and mining, of the West are given ample review. The pages devoted to the author’s time spent in Vernal, Utah and the oil boom it was experiencing were especially helpful at providing an understanding of the environmental and human costs associated with an extractive industry, and at exploring the vastly different perspectives on what each of those impacts means to different people.

Although the book is focused on Abbey, Stegner and the West, it also gives considerable space to the ideas and insight of Wendell Berry, a farmer and author deeply rooted in Kentucky. For some context, Berry read a letter from Stegner and Abbey’s funeral ceremony (Stegner was unable to attend) and had authored the essay A Few Words in Favor of Ed Abbey. In addition to the perspective on the lives and literature of the two authors, I found that the author’s reflections upon Berry’s idea of “land use” to be particularly thought-provoking. The idea that just because humans can build somewhere doesn’t necessarily mean they should – both for their own sake and for the sake of the landscape. The following passage in particular drove this point home and helped me, whose relationship to Western landscapes currently comes from a somewhat selfish and purely recreational standpoint, grasp some of the bigger picture thinking that Abbey, Stegner, and Berry have so astutely expressed in their various works:

“If parts of these lands are really as vulnerable and difficult to inhabit as Stegner and others have suggested, as open to disaster, then perhaps to leave them alone is simply practical. We don’t put aside land only because it makes for a pretty park. We put it aside because it makes sense. It is how it should be. Much of this land is properly wild.”

In Conclusion

Ultimately, I found All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West to provide a similar motivation to explore new places and revisit old favorites that I get from reading and re-reading guidebooks, except in this case it was literary destinations as well as physical ones. Although this book sports a health index and copious notes on its sources and the research that went into it, it never feels like an overly academic text. It has a pace and rhythm to it that is effective and the author rarely draws any particular subject out in a way that will test your attention span. If you’re familiar with Stegner or Abbey or interested in the American West, and I believe most hikers fall into one of those categories, then reading this book is highly recommended.

You can find the book All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West here at Amazon.com.

Editor's Note: This book review originally appeared in Issue 32 of TrailGroove Magazine. You can read the original article here.