Buried illegally in a blue sleeping bag under an Arizona rock reading "No comment," Edward Abbey lived and died defying convention. This deep dive traces how a boy raised by an anarchist logger father in green Pennsylvania became an iconic anti-establishment voice of the arid American West, synthesizing distrust of the state with a fierce love of wilderness.

From a rebellious stint as a military policeman to solitary years as a park ranger at Arches, Abbey developed his critique of industrial tourism in "Desert Solitaire" and popularized direct sabotage in his novel "The Monkey Wrench Gang," which inspired the radical group Earth First. His uncompromising, contradictory views made him a pariah across the political spectrum.

• How a household split between classical culture and anarchism shaped him
• Why the indifferent desert ...