Bought this book over a dozen years ago, couldn't get into it then. Put it aside. Just tried again. Still find it tedious, repetitive. Peacock was a Green Beret medic in Vietnam. Came home disillusioned and damaged - PTSD. Took him years to acknowledge it. Left his Michigan home to wander the parched, arid deserts of the Southwest, where he met and became friends with the ornery author-environmentalist Ed Abbey. His marriage comes apart. Abbey dies. Peacock studies grizzly bears. Walks and explores. Hikes and thinks. For years. Remarries, More hiking, cogitating, remembering Vietnam, figuring things out. Pages and pages of hiking, endless descriptions of flora and fauna, missing his friend and mentor, Abbey. Sorry, but I was skimming and glazing over. A very strange mix of war memoir and nature study. Just did not work for me. And I'm from Michigan too, and I've read and enjoyed Ed Abbey's books. So I wanted to like it, but, finally, could not. Not recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

a combat veteran looks for inner peace in the wilderness. it is also a story about a friendship even two men. and it studies life by looking at death ( )