One Life at a Time, Please

by Edward Abbey

From stories about cattlemen, fellow critics, his beloved desert, cities, and technocrats to thoughts on sin and redemption, this is one of our most treasured writers at the height of his powers.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Environment, Nature, Philosophy, Outdoors, Memoir

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Edward Paul Abbey (1927–1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views.

Abbey attended college in New Mexico and then worked as a park ranger and fire lookout for the National Park Service in the Southwest. It was during this time that he developed the relationship with the area’s environment that influenced his writing. During his service, he was in close proximity to the ruins of ancient Native American cultures and saw the expansion and destruction of modern civilization.

His love for nature and extreme distrust of the industrial world influenced much of his work and helped garner a cult following.

Abbey died on March 14, 1989, due to complications from surgery. He was buried as he had requested: in a sleeping bag—no embalming fluid, no casket. His body was secretly interred in an unmarked grave in southern Arizona.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a bulldozer, government serves the caprice of any man or group who succeeds in seizing the controls. The purpose of anarchism is to dismantle such institutions and to prevent their reconstruction.

Instead we see the realization of the scheme devised by Madison and Hamilton: a strong centralized state which promotes and protects the accumulation of private wealth on the part of a few, while reducing the majority to the role of dependent employees of state and industry.

My second read of Ed Abbey's collection of thoughts on life, nature, government, literature, and miscellany reveals contradiction and vulnerability that I missed in the first breathless, worshipful read some fifteen years ago. It is a changed reader that now chaffs at Ed's calls for anarchy as the maximum form of democracy, while only a few pages away he pleads for a dystopian world in which an all-powerful government halts immigration, enacts draconian sterilization campaigns to cull the "weak", and purges all interlopers from wilderness areas. Populist, Malthusian Ed didn't seem to know what he wanted. He nails some of our modern problems that Bernie and others have since brought to the fore of political debate, then lurches into the xenophobia and parochial simple-mindedness of Trump (these are my dominant lenses today). Ed's succinct comparison of the Soviet Union (SU) and the US is even more brutally on target today: Government controls industry in the SU, industry controls government in the US.

Then there are passages on nature and relationships that bring tears to my eyes, such as: "We will return, someday. Isn't that what we always think as we hurry on, rushing toward the inane infinity of our unnameable desires? Isn't that what we always say?"

36. We liked our venison poached.
41-44. Ed's thoughts on immigration - what may have been a rational conclusion to pause all immigration is wholly co-opted by those who pander to white supremacists
52. Who would believe the world contained so many, such strange busy perfectly fungible multitudes?
53. Of Condard, (Jack) London, and B. Travern, Tavern's was "the generous vision of human life" at sea.
58. The rainbow flag designed in 1789 by Thomas Paine, anarchist - for freedom of the high seas and the rights of man.
60. When a city finally stops growing its citizens can finally begin to live. In peace. Security. With a modicum of domestic tranquillity.
66. Economics, no matter how econometric it pretends to be, resembles meteorology more than mathematics. A cloudy science of swirling vapors, signifying nothing.
67-68. Peak Malthusian Ed - sterilization, exclusively for women (in return for a new Mustang) - because, efficiency... Ed was demonstrably unsuited to have children, yet fathered a fair number.
112. A nation without flowing rivers would be a nation without hope.
164. Ed going on about 'our European heritage'... KKK vibes.
171. Contempt for animal life leads to contempt for human life.
...
There is more truth in the sometimes airy fantasies of Kurt Vonnegut than in the tedious naturalism of John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom novels. Vonnegut writes as a critic of society; Updike in passive acceptance. As a result, assuming both do well what they set out to do, Vonnegut's work is more provocative, suggestive, meaningful--more interesting.
174. Praise for other social critic novelists: Edmund Wilson (Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War), Robert Coover (The Public Burning),William Gaddis, Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow), DeLillo (Ratner's Star), Heller (Something Happened)

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"From stories about cattlemen, fellow critics, his beloved desert, cities, and technocrats to thoughts on sin and redemption, this is one of our most treasured writers at the height of his powers."

This was a real treat for me - I adore Edward Abbey, and really enjoyed getting a small tour through his thoughts and philosophies.

"Ten thousand years of human history demonstrate that our freedoms cannot be entrusted to those ambitious few who are drawn to power; we must learn -- again -- to govern ourselves. Anarchism does not mean 'no rule'; it means 'no rulers.' Difficult but not utopian, anarchy means and requires self-rule, self-discipline, probity, character."

I've never been drawn to anarchy, but I've never heard it defined in such terms before, and it seems to me this definition bears a good deal of thinking about. Certainly we live in a time when our leaders and our government seem to defy the will of the people, but we count ourselves lucky to be living in such a regime. Would self-rule, characterized by self-discipline, probity and character be possible? Currently I think we would be likely to say no, but .... it's worth thinking about, isn't it?

[Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is divided into four parts: Politics, Travel, Books and Art and Nature Love (just one short bit on predator hunting calls and littering).

The Politics section is as expected: deep insights into Abbey's anarchic views, some founded in legitimate reason, others in a bit of selfish or humanistic lunacy, but well-argued and coherent, often difficult to be critical of. Highlights from the section include Arizona: How Big is Big Enough?, Eco-Defense (the forward to Bill Haywood and Dave Foreman's "Ecodefense"). As always, Abbey uses his youth in Appalachia and coming of age in the American Southwest as a mode of transport through his political view.

In Travel, the true Abbey, or the Abbey so many of has fallen in love with, comes out. While A San Francisco Journal is a bit of a slog, it's refreshing to hear him speak of somehwere out of the Four Corners Region. However, the highlight of Travel and One Life At A Time, Please, are the stories within this section, journals from Abbey's journies throughout said Four Corners with various troops of characters: in Lake Powell by Houseboat, Abbey travels arounf the canyons of Lake Powell with a group of geologist on a field course, reminiscent of Desert Solitaire and possibly inspiring the tales withing Monkey Wrench Gang. River of No Return finds Abbey farther north in Idaho with a group of river runners, diving into the history of the Salmon River in Idaho and the largest remaining expanse of unpaved wilderness in America. Yet, for the truest sense of Desert Solitaire, we have Big Bend. Big Bend details a short camping trip into the Texas national park with Jack Loeffler, one of Abbey's best friends and kindred spirits.

The book then progresses into Books and Art, and while the whole section is worth reading for any students of Abbey (the chapters within are those in which Abbey himself was studious to), they don't have much staying power being the original read, aside from the interview with Joseph Wood Krutch in his final days. While the two share completely different backgrounds, many ideologies are shared, and one can see where much of Abbey's origins were conceived. Unfortunately, other writings in this section including Emerson and The Future of Sex, are damn near unreadable.

The essential Abbey is here, with the stories of deserts and landscapes outside of Utah and Arizona, yet the filler material is often excessively preachy and to some, will be offensive. While there is plenty of excellent writing here, it is far from Abbey's best. For a true Abbey scholar or fan, it's necessary part of the journey.

[Tanyx · Rating 3 out of 5]

My professor gave me this book in hopes of encouraging me to explore nature/ ecology journalism.
I found some interesting things to think about- I've never been on a river, and don't remember cities before they were big. This is outdated, referencing future growth that has occurred and has been slowing recently.
He wrote to shock. He was a xenophobe. He believed that his writing served a purpose. Had he not been an allocishet white man, he would not have been successful.

Merged review:

We agreed on some points, disagreed on others. The book is dated, but still relevant.
He saw nature as a place to lose oneself in. He enjoyed hunting in his early years when food was scarce, but didn't believe in sport hunting.
His Cowboy essay was particularly interesting, as the aesthetic represents an idea of old western culture, but is far from eco-friendly.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I randomly stumbled upon this book in the library and not gonna lie I only picked it up because the authors last name is Abbey. But it ended up being pretty interesting, it’s written prose style which I have been getting into recently, and the author is very clearly an extreme environmental advocate which immediately made me feel bonded and related to him. He writes in impressive detailed description of natural parks he loves, his trips floating down various rivers, and all of the animals, planets and topography he experiences. He’s also heavily critical of overconsumption, politics, and our unsustainable population growth and points out many foreseeable issues that our planet faces in the near future. And he wrote this in the 80s and has since passed on to the big man upstairs so I can only imagine that Abbey is rolling and screaming in his grave rn at the state of our country. Yikes

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ed Abbey’s final few years were spent in obsessive work, as he knew he was dying and wanted to make provisions for his family. The Fool’s Progress and One Life at a Time, Please, were published in the hopes of supporting his young wife Clarke and their two children after his death. One Life is a motley collection of essays and other short nonfiction pieces, divided into three sections – Politics, Travel, and Books & Art. “Travel” is stock Abbey – reminiscences of various hikes and river jaunts – with the exception of a memoir of his time spent in and around San Francisco, one of the few cities he doesn’t loathe entirely. (He generally refers to them as termite-mounds, the ultimate in collectivism.) Abbey opens the collection with three of his more controversial pieces, one denouncing western ranchers who abused public lands to range their cattle, one imploring the government to close the southern border, and another espousing his personal theory of anarchism. Abbey was if nothing else a passionate defender of the west, despising the distortions that rapid expansion was creating there during his forty-year tenure in Arizona and Utah. He saw the diversion of rivers to water the golf courses of Las Vegas, and the damming of beautiful spaces like Glen Canyon, and was moved to literal (if not particularly effective) violence. His anti-immigrant stance was similarly motivated, as Abbey saw the United States as teeming with too many people as it was, and in no need of newcomers whose treatment of the land was even more severe than the Anglos. The last section closes the book with a bang, especially his tribute to the freelance writer, who by virtue of being independent carried the obligation to speak his mind freely, without deference to either authority or public opinion. He was evidently an enormous fan of Solzhenitsyn, referring to him as a personal hero — along with Thoreau and Tolstoy. Although the collection as a whole is not one of Abbey’s strongest (Desert Solitaire wins there), some of the pieces are so particularly interesting that it’s well worth seeking out.

[Kristofer Petersen-Overton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abbey at his best -- if most controversial. After all "Immigration and Liberal Taboos" is *the* notorious piece. The one in which he sullies an otherwise remarkable body of work. And not because immigration is an issue unworthy of discussion, but precisely because of the racist way he goes about arguing the case for population control. His classification of poor Latin American immigrants as "culturally-morally-generically impoverished people" is astonishingly obtuse for anyone, but especially someone who identifies as an anarchist. His description of the U.S. "boat ... submerged in the Caribbean-Latin version of civilization," stifled by the "alien mode of life" immigrants bring runs counter to everything else he writes. As someone who recognized the hypocrisy of elites, political and economic, and who railed eloquently against the corrosive power of capitalism, Ed Abbey knew better. I suspect this essay grew more out of Ed's fondness for provocation than his flair for cutting through bullshit. Sorry Ed, but this piece, the one you call your "favorite" of this collection, is just that - bullshit.

Apart from that one blip that cost Abbey many alliances (and which he later regretted privately, at least according to Cahalan's biography) is stellar, including his reading of Steinem's ostensible radicalism (mere "mild reformism") and Emerson (who "may have been a bore ... but he was a brave and honest bore").

"Writer's Credo" is an inspired piece of work and I wasn't surprised to see Noam Chomsky invoked at one point. The piece reminds me a bit of Chomsky's "On the Responsibility of Intellectuals" or at least the message is along the same lines. In Ed, it's the writer, in Chomsky the intellectual who has a responsibility to expose charlatans and (because it's easier to do in the U.S. that it is in many parts of the world) to take bold positions in opposition to entrenched power. This is the Abbey I love: the courageous, no-bullshit, advocate for freedom and justice, delivered like a punch to the face in tight, humorous, and passionate prose.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up in a bookstore in Moab, UT this summer. They had a whole display of Abbey's works, an author who I thought maybe (?) I had heard of. I decided to try this collection of his essays instead of one of his novels. He was a helluva writer who lived in and loved the four corners region of the U.S. He died in the 1980s - his essays are somehow both prescient and timeless. Not for everyone, tho, the man is opinionated and holds nothing back. I get the impression his novels read the same way, I want to try one and find out.

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edward Abbey was an excellent writer. His convictions cared not for gray areas. To him the gray was nothing more then a reason for foolish apathy. And yet, the man knew that black and white were impossible absolutes in the grand world of human ideas. We are far too "me first" to think of that which is more universal. To Abbey the universal is God as Nature.

Abbey had a powerful vocabulary, it was strong, intellectually literate, and poetic. His travel writings took you there, engaging all the senses held within our own imagination. His politics backed up his love of Nature with decisive conviction. His ideas on books and art were fueled with Emerson's ideas of beauty that Abbey completely understood. The man was well balanced when it came to knitting transcendental and physical visions together with a hunting riffle. The man had a practical outlook.

"For its final hundred miles, rapidly diminishing in volume, the Rio Grand again becomes the servant of humankind, nourishing another belt of cotton plantations, oilfields, citrus groves, and many towns and cities...Finally it twists and turns across a broad delta, no longer a river but only a little stream, to rejoin the source of all rivers, the open sea. There, under the power planet of the sun, the clouds are forming, day and night, to carry the precious water vapor back to the mountain once again, completing the circle.
A river, like truth, flows on forever and has no end.
So say the Chinese." (pg. 157)

[Natalie Ironside · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been a big fan of Ed and all of his many, many, many, many flaws for most of my life, but this collection is Ed at his most incoherent and masturbatory. His landscapes and travelogues and his polemics about the importance of wilderness are stirring and beautiful as always . . . and the man really should've just stuck with what he was good at; Desert Solitaire this is not. In addition to the casual racism and sexism and homophobia that shows up in a lot of his work (I believe Ed is what the youths would refer to as a "problematic fave"), this work goes to some bafflingly buck-wild places: Unscientific Malthusian economics & environmentalism, the conviction that the best way to do an anarchy is to have a totalitarian right-wing government enforcing militarized borders to stop mass immigration, and even flirtations with eugenicist race science and state-mandated sterilization programs (!!!).

He gets an extra star because the essay where he takes the piss out of the cattle industry is pretty choice tho

[Fletcher Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the book where Ed Abbey really hammers in his opinions on immigration. His views are quite hypocritical, considering he is an anarchist, he moved to the desert himself, and how he doesn’t believe in fencing the west but completely closing the border is ok to him. And in another book of his, The Brave Cowboy, a character goes to jail for helping someone across the border, and the punishment is shown as BS. He also calls Latin America a “lesser” culture. Too bad considering a lot of his other opinions are really good and he was one of the few people speaking on his views at the time. The second star in this review is for the Travel section of the book. Reminiscent of Desert Solitaire, still one of my favorite books

[Philip L · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first was introduced to Edward Abbey's writing several years back when I read Desert Solitaire. Absolutely loved it! Nature writing is one of my favorite genres and he did that but with an edge to it and an honesty that I found compelling. Wanted to read more of him, but didn't get around to it till this year. Read The Monkey Wrench Gang and then this collection of essays. Although I don't necessarily agree with some of his opinions, his writing to me is a clear voice in the wilderness (no pun intended there). If you haven't read any Abbey yet, this would be a good introduction.

[Gib · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this book hiding in my shelves - it's been there since 2003 with a bookmark from McCall, Idaho - and upon reading, was reminded how much I enjoy Abbey's writing about nature, wilderness, wildlife, and the place of humans in the cosmos. You'll have to work your way past some of his attitudes and beliefs about immigration and women, but many of us have changed since his death in 1989. Perhaps he would have, too.

[Julie Gulden · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was 5* writing in this collection, but sadly also 2* musings as well. The pieces focused on travel, nature, and landscapes were those I loved the most. Took me back to reading Desert Solitaire.

His thoughts on society, culture and politics were interesting and thought provoking; however, some were of his points were outdated, xenophobic and offensive.

In the end, I love reading Edward Abbey although I don’t always agree with his point of view.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite Abbey, and certainly hand picked out which essays I read from this collection. His journals about traveling nature areas are his strongest points I feel. This seemed to be a collection of his older work, and to a certain point, I felt got a bit jaded. Could also be that I had taken a fair amount of his work out from the library recently. 2.5 stars.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of essays divided among politics, travel, and books & art. as usual, the politics and travel sections contain classic Abbey— rants against growth and the myth of “progress”, travels in the desert and on rivers.

my favorite essays were Theory of Anarchy, Arizona: How Big is Big Enough?, A San Francisco Journal, Big Bend, A Writer’s Credo.

[Walter Gay · Rating 4 out of 5]

He likes to push people's buttons, and he succeeded in that here

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

But then again, nothing can compare to Desert Solitaire now can it?

[Wyatt W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great collection of smaller pieces by Abbey. This pulled me into his style and his interests. Loved almost all the pieces in there, with a few that weren’t what I was really looking for.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Sunshine and scenery, good company on a free river, great music sounding and resounding from a drifting boat— the queen of England never had it half so good.”

[Kasey Lawson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quiet, piggy.

[jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

a score of essays on politics, travel and books. this was the final collection published before abbey's death in 1989, and arguably one of his most accomplished. "a writer's credo" is one of the finest essays on writing i have ever read.

why write? how justify this mad itch for scribbling? speaking for myself, i write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies. i write to record the truth of our time as best as i can see it. to investigate the comedy and tragedy of human relationships. to oppose, resist, and sabotage the contemporary drift toward a global technocratic police state, whatever its ideological coloration. i write to oppose injustice, to defy power, and to speak for the voiceless.
i write to make a difference. "it is always a writer's duty," said samuel johnson, "to make the world better." i write to give pleasure and promote aesthetic bliss. to honor life and to praise the divine beauty of the natural world. i write for the joy and exultation of writing itself. to tell my story.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to think of Edward Abbey and his ideas. I like his description of nature that he encounters during his hikes and water adventures (although they got a little repetitious and tiring after a while), but his beliefs that the writer should be and must be a critic of the society in which he lives (as though there is nothing positive that could be said about our society) and that population growth must be controlled (as though someone other than the individual should decide whether to have children) leave me a bit cold. And Abbey seems to find it difficult to live up to at least some of his preaching. For instance, he rails against using the automobile to bring the public closer to certain areas of natural beauty, but then rides his, or his friend's, vehicle into rugged areas of natural beauty himself.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes called the "desert anarchist," author Edward Abbey was known to anger people of all political stripes, including environmentalists. In his essays, he describes throwing beer cans out of his car, claiming the highway had already littered the landscape. This book is a collection of what the author terms "pieces", all written "for money". I found the essays sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad but always thought-provoking. I would have really liked Edward Abbey as a free-thinking human being even if not always agreeing with his opinions.

[Ranger Sven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing by Abbey! I absolutely loved Free Speech: the Cowboy and His Cow; it is Abbey at his best. The talk Abbey gave at the University of Montana highlights everything I love about "Cactus Ed" and how much he is missed. River Solitaire and River of No Return are two of my favorite travel essays, by Abbey. River Solitaire describes a fall trip Abbey made along the Colorado River. I thoroughly enjoyed Abbey's solo journey along this beautiful river in the SW.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another collection of essays and speeches, somewhat more popular than those contained in Black Sun. Includes Free Speech; the Cowboy and his Cow, Theory of Anarchy, Immigration and Liberal Taboos, A Writer's Creedo, Etc., Etc.

[Curt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny and interesting essays. His address to a convention of cow folk is hilarious.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

No comment, I don't know, no I never have met these people before, I have no idea what I am doing out here with this monkey wrench

[Alexa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not your typical, fiery Abbey - much more restrained and mellow... Still a good read though.

[Kirk Kittell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abbey's essays handpicked by Abbey himself. Good enough for me.