DeVoto shared with Stegner an ability to see the big picture. But he shared plenty with Abbey, too: a tendency toward overstatement, a willingness to bloody noses, a love of tweaking the overly proper and accepted. Stegner once called DeVoto the "Lone Ranger," and one can easily imagine DeVoto standing alone in the 1940s and '50s, keeping a mob of vigilantes {politicians, developers, ranchers, oil men} at bay as they clamored on about taking back "their" land. Stegner joined DeVoto in the fight, but it wasn't until Ed Abbey came along that anyone took to the fight with anywhere near the same cantankerous spirit.
( David Gessner )
[ All The Wild That Remains: ]
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