Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
(July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005)
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and novelist. He is best known for his pioneered style of Gonzo journalism.
Thompson was born to an affluent middle-class family in Kentucky. His father died when he was fourteen, and he and his brother were raised by their increasingly alcoholic mother. Due to his charge as accessory to a robbery (for being a passenger in a stolen car), Thompson failed to graduate high school and was ejected from his social circle.
After high school, he briefly joined the Air Force before being honourably discharged two years into his career. He then began to pursue journalism.
Beginning as sports columnist, Thompson eventually immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture of the 60s. His first major book success was a novel-length exposé on the Hell’s Angels. Afterwards, his journalist writings began to sell well and to bigger magazines.
His next book was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which launched him to a state of fame. Thompson did not like working under a deadline, so he found difficulties with the high-pressure state of celebrity journalism.
Thompson was always very political in his work. He ran for Sheriff of Aspen County in 1970 and vocally opposed Nixon in 1972. He continued to write novels and articles until his death.
After years of abusing drugs and progressively bad ‘downer’ episodes, Thompson died of a self-inflicted gun wound at his homestead.
Hunter S. Thompson is a book author.
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I often read as much about American politics as I do about the politics about my own country. Though it feels like I’m on the outside looking in when I read books like this, it to some extent feels closer than is comfortable as well.
On the surface, he’s travelling with his attorney and a trunk full of drugs in order to document a racing event and later on to attend a convention for law enforcement on drugs and drug culture. Below the surface, it’s a journey to figure out the purpose of journalism, idealism, and its role in the shifting tide of American culture. This is a review of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
