Will I love The Fool's Progress?

Abbey wrote twenty-one books. While others considered him a “nature writer,” he roiled at that idea.

Instead, he considered himself a novelist, and he spent his entire career trying to write “the great American novel.” Published in 1988, a year before his death, Abbey called The Fool’s Progress his “fat masterpiece.” And I agree.

This might be his most intimate and emotional book. To me, this book aches with heart. This semi-autobiographical novel is about Henry Holyoak Lightcap’s journey home from the Desert Southwest to die in West Virginia.

The book is filled with reflection on death, which was… show more.