This is an homage to the writer Edward Abbey that I wrote after he died in Tucson, Arizona, in March 1989. Abbey was an important figure in my life and personal development—as I wrote in the piece, he was the closest thing I’ve ever had to “a larger-than-life, honest-to-goodness hero.” I’m somewhat embarrassed when I remember the adulation that I, a young man, burdened him with. At the same time, I smile when I remember the day in 1971 when I discovered Desert Solitaire in my high school library and recall the visceral response that Abbey’s crisp prose and contrary persona excited in me. For good or bad—and at this point in my life it doesn’t really matter which—he changed me forever. Rest in peace, Ed.

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On Leaving the Midwest (1985)

In August 1983 I drove from New Mexico to Iowa to start graduate school in the University of Iowa’s recently established nonfiction writing program. Before arriving in Iowa City, I had never set foot in the state of Iowa and was mostly unfamiliar with the American Midwest, and for several months after my arrival I felt like a displaced person—a stranger in a strange land. Over the course of my two years in Iowa City, however, I came to appreciate my new neighbors’ genuine friendliness and unpretentious pragmatism, and I grew unexpectedly fond of my temporary home. Now, many years later, I still remember my time there with unabashed affection.

As I prepared to leave Iowa City for the last time in the spring of 1985, I wrote this essay, which reflects on a more sobering aspect of my experience in the Midwest and which was published in the Daily Iowan on May 9, 1985.