When Doug Peacock went off to the Vietnam War in the 1960s, he returned broken and hollow, haunted by too many memories of death and destruction. In a moment of synchronicity, his last helicopter flight to Danang, from where he left for home, carried him over the village of My Lai as American troops massacred the inhabitants. When he found out about the incident later it seared his consciousness.
Upon Peacock’s return to America, he found himself adrift in a culture that he no longer understood. His only solace was to head to the wilderness. He headed to the Rockies and then to the deserts of the Southwest. In his travels he met Edward Abbey, author of Desert Solitaire, and later, The Monkey Wrench Gang. They became friends, at times bickering and feuding, fellow explorers and drinking buddies. Peacock’s new book recounts their friendship, interspersed with flashbacks to Vietnam and accounts of rambles through the wilderness to “walk off” the aching pain that so disabled him, and to end his hard drinking. Abbey had used Peacock as a role model for Hayduke in The Monkey Wrench Gang, and the act created a great tension between the two men.
Peacock carries us through his death vigil for Abbey and to Abbey’s illegal bootleg burial in the Arizona desert. Abbey had been a cranky, cantankerous, even misanthropic person, and Peacock spends most of the book trying to sort through the love he felt for the man. All of this is juxtaposed with Peacock’s own Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that rendered him unable to find a place in American society. Though Abbey may have been a guide in some areas of Peacock’s life, he was of little use in this area of dealing with society. For both of them, wilderness was the only refuge, their last, best hope for a kind of sanity.
Article comments
1 - GoHah
You write "with a clear, lucid prose," also.
2 - Temple Stark
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Cheers. Temple
3 - Marc Beaudin
You give one of the better reviews of Doug's book. Good insight. As far as wanting to know more of Doug's youth; that's something for him and his family. I will tell you that the forests, wetlands, and lakes of Michigan taught him things that have been with him all of his life. If there are shortcomings to the book, I am probably too close to Doug to see them. But I think you nail things here quite well.