Fear & Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist

The Fear and Loathing Letters #2

by Hunter S. Thompson, David Halberstam (Foreword), Douglas Brinkley (Editor)

Brazen, incisive, and outrageous as ever, Hunter S. Thompson is back with another astonishing volume of his private correspondence, the highly anticipated follow-up to "The Proud Highway." When that first book of letters appeared in 1997, "Time" pronounced it "deliriously entertaining"; "Rolling Stone" called it "brilliant beyond description"; and "The New York Times" celebrated its "wicked humor and bracing political conviction."Spanning the years between 1968 and 1976, these never-before-published letters show Thompson building his legend: running for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado; creating the seminal road book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas;" twisting political reporting to new heights for "Rolling Stone;" and making sense of it all in the landmark "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." To read Thompson's dispatches from these years -- addressed to the author's friends, enemies, editors, and creditors, and such notables as Jimmy Carter, Tom Wolfe, and Kurt Vonnegut -- is to read a raw, revolutionary eyewitness account of one of the most exciting and pivotal eras in American history.

Provocative and revealing, "Fear and Loathing in America" cements Hunter S. Thompson's reputation as one of the great literary and cultural icons of our time -- the only man alive to have ridden with both the Hell's Angels and Richard Nixon.

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism, Biography, Memoir, Politics, History, Essays

756 pages, Hardcover

First published December 13, 2000

About the author

Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of New Journalism alongside Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. He gained prominence with Hell's Angels, living among the motorcycle club to provide a first-hand account of their lives, and later wrote the unconventional article "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," which established his signature Gonzo journalism style, in which the writer becomes central to the narrative. He is best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, serialized in Rolling Stone, exploring the failure of the 1960s counterculture, adapted for film in 1980 and 1998. Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, on the Freak Power ticket and became known for his intense disdain for Richard Nixon, covering George McGovern's 1972 campaign for Rolling Stone in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. His output declined in the mid-1970s due to fame and substance abuse, though he continued writing sporadically for outlets including Rolling Stone, Playboy, Esquire, and ESPN.com, with much of his work collected in The Gonzo Papers. Thompson was known for lifelong alcohol and drug use, love of firearms, and contempt for authority, often noting that such vices "worked for him." He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Virginia Davison Ray, a librarian, and Jack Robert Thompson, an insurance adjuster, and grew up in the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood. After his father’s death, his mother raised him and his two brothers. An athletic youth, he co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club, attended several schools including Louisville Male High School, and became a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, contributing to its yearbook until expelled for criminal activity. He enlisted in the Air Force, studying electronics and becoming sports editor of the Command Courier, then worked briefly for Time and local newspapers before moving to Puerto Rico to write for El Sportivo and the San Juan Star. He traveled to South America for the National Observer, then lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a caretaker and security guard and published his first magazine feature and short story. Thompson married Sandra Dawn Conklin, with whom he had a son, Juan, and continued writing, experimenting with dextroamphetamine and later cocaine. His reporting on the Hell's Angels and coverage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention shaped his political outlook. After Hell's Angels, he published for national magazines and critiqued the hippie movement, then moved to Woody Creek, Colorado, establishing his home Owl Farm. In 1970, he pioneered Gonzo journalism with his Kentucky Derby article, later collaborating with illustrator Ralph Steadman, and began writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, combining fiction and reportage. His coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign broke traditional boundaries of political reporting. Thompson struggled with fame and substance abuse, missing assignments such as the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974, and retreated to Owl Farm, continuing to write sporadically. He produced The Gonzo Papers, contributed to The San Francisco Examiner, and published memoir Kingdom of Fear in 2003. He married Anita Bejmuk in 2003, and in 2005 took his own life at Owl Farm. Thompson’s Gonzo style blurred fiction and nonfiction, placing himself at the center of his narratives, often creating a mythic persona, Raoul Duke. His political beliefs included support for drug legalization, firearm rights, civil liberties, and skepticism of official narratives, and he engaged in advocacy through the Fourth Amendment Foundation and NORML. Posthumously, scholarships in his name support journalism students and veterans. Thompson remains a cult figure, celebrated for his audacious, immersive writing, fearless social critique, and enduring influence o

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listening to this represents a couple of firsts for me as a reader. It was the first time I have read the letters of a writer whose books I have not yet read. In addition, it marked the first time I have experienced a collection of letters in the audiobook format. That worked pretty well, since his letters make for good listening, and since the book provides a lot of insight into the life and thoughts of Thompson during the most creative period of his life. I am familiar with the legend of the notorious gonzo journalist, a figure who has come to us thru the popular culture with films (including a documentary directed by the great Alex Gibney) and a key role in the Doonesbury comic strip. The reading btw was performed effectively by Malcolm Hillgartner, who changed styles for certain letter writers, giving a slight Mexican accent to HST's Chicano sidekick Oscar Acosta, and adding pomposity to Tom Wolfe.

Here we see the legend taking shape, as Thompson settles down (or tries to anyway) in Woody Creek, Colorado and pursues his unique career in freelance journalism. He was coming off a successful book on the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and selling occasional pieces to Scanlan's Monthly (an exciting magazine that went bankrupt in its first year) along with other journals. He was working on a full-length work on the death of the American Dream for Random House, a project that he never really got going. We can practically hear the wheels in his head spinning in his letters to his editor, Jim Silberman, as he tries desperately to outline and come to grips with the book. Thompson struggled with constant debts, and salved his anxieties with liberal applications of alcohol, mescaline, and LSD (althou marijuana did not interest him much). Eventually salvation showed up in the form of a position as a staff writer at Rolling Stone magazine. He also was a big aficionado of firearms, and approached one editor with an offer of a humorous monthly column on the subject, written by his bad boy alter ego, Raoul Duke.

Many of these letters contain some fine writing, but others do not. I grew a little bored with his itemized expense requests and demands for payment from publishers. And the tales of his involvement in local Aspen / Pitkin County politics are fascinating, but grow repetitive. Apparently he was involved in an effort to get a young, inexperienced, pot-smoking cyclist/lawyer elected mayor of Aspen, and made a run for county sherrif himself. Both these efforts came up short, but only by a handful of votes. We can only wonder what that might have turned out like if they had won!

A few things definitely become clear about the man. He was rebellious, angry, incisive, and funny. He was easily outraged and frequently outrageous. I did begin to grow a bit tired with his constant invective and lashing out at others - he seemed pretty unwilling to look at the possibility that one source of his difficulties was his own behavior. His political outlook could best be described as left-libertarian - he despised the Republican Party and viewed the establishment with some paranoia - the fear and loathing he is always putting into his letters ("Yours in Fear and Loathing".) I also began to perceive some instability in the man - despite his talents he was probably struggling with some sort of psychological disorder. He later became a shadow of his former self - barely able to write, in bad shape physically, and still consuming lots of psychoactive substances. Eventually he himself became the spectacle, rather than his writing. Still, I look forward to reading some of his classic gonzo works, some of which I'm sure kick some a** and recall a time when there were adventurous, wild journalists out there with a left-of-center perspective.

[John Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was in college, my friends and I read Hunter S. Thompson because he was wild, fearless, funny, and took lots and lots of drugs. The mean streak that showed, say, in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas's diner-waitress scene was forgivable; we lived in mean times. The memory of Nixon was still fresh, and Nixon surrounded himself with thugs and goons like Gordon Liddy and Chuck Colson. Maybe the backbone that was needed to oppose dirty-tricksters like these required a certain insensitivity in one's character. Besides, each time he'd write something to make you uneasy, it would be followed by a passage that took your breath away, as much for its passion and idealism as for the force and gracefulness of the prose.

That passion and idealism is what makes him worth reading now. It doesn't show much after 1976 and the election of Jimmy Carter (whose personal letters to Thompson, by the way, show a broad-minded tolerance you wouldn't expect in a Southern Baptist politician). But before then, the vigor with which he wrote about politics—and the brilliance with which he expressed his core beliefs: that everybody must have a seat at the table of American democracy, and that individual freedom and representation are paramount—shone through every line of his prose, and was often breathtaking.

In addition, his pre-gonzo journalism, including especially his dispatches from South America in the mid-'60s, showed that he had real physical courage and could write straight as well as just about anybody.

But the dark side of his character was never hidden. Thompson out-Mailered Mailer as the poster villain for toxic masculinity. He was aggressive toward people in his personal life and turned from love to contempt on a dime. He loved guns, motorcycles, and danger, and he loved to start fights. He had little tenderness and dismissed fear and doubt when he would have benefited from embracing them. Anecdotal testimony portrays him as cruel to animals. He expected license due to his brilliance, and he mostly got it.

These letters display that brilliance and show that he was often deeply thoughtful about issues, if never about people. But his manic aggression makes reading him exhausting. It's tolerable when it's laced with humor, but less so when his mood fails him and he falls back on well-established personal tropes and overused phrases. "Brutal...savage...swine..." His pet phrases reveal the fascist dressed in anarchist’s clothing. When he gloried in guns and violence he sounded more like Goering than like any American hero.

I read these 600 pages of letters, but I recommend you stick with the holy trinity of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Great Shark Hunt, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 to experience the very best of Thompson. There's no need to go further.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Not many months left in this era; not even a year, as I see it, and maybe less. Maybe it's already gone."

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jesus H. Christ almighty, but I MISS this man.
This is a compendium of letters written, both personal and professional correspondence, between 1968 and 1976 that shows not only the biting wit but the razor sharp intellect of this now gone author. You know how people make off-handed comments like 'a light went out' or 'we lost something important' when he died? And you think to yourself, yeah, yeah, everyone says that kind of thing when someone dies... sometimes just to be polite. Well, however over-used, those remarks hold true this time.
Brutal honesty and laugh until your stomach hurts writing combination. That what this book shows about HST.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book of letters I've read from this guy. So I've read approximately 1500 pages of personal correspondence from this dude amounting to the first 2/3 of his life before he blew his brains out. Honestly, I can't think of another writer whose personal letters would interest me as much (well, now that I think about it, possibly Robert Anton Wilson or maybe Thomas Pynchon, but there don't seem so be 1000s of pages of their letters so it's irrelevant). But anyways, I liked this. We all know that Hunter was a crazy man, but he also was freaking smart and his letters to people like George McGovern, Pat Buchanan, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Jimmy Carter, etc etc etc prove this. So he basically started out as an unknown writer but then wrote some crazy good books and still lived the good life. It was fun to see a guy whose books are in every bookstore now bitching and moaning about money and saying how he thought that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was his best book, but he wasn't getting any cash for it. And then there were the letters to and from Fear and Loathing's "300 pound Samoan Lawyer" who wasn't actually 300 pounds or Samoan (but was a lawyer) Oscar Zeta Acosta. These were great. They pretty much beat each other up for years until Acosta dissappeared, never to be seen again. Anyways. OK for that. Hunter was nuts, but was politically and culturally insightful and definitely lived the American philosophy of liberty.

[Kilburn Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of letters starts in 1968 HST is living in Woody Creek, The Rum Diary has been written and Hells Angels has been published. Not only does it give an insight into who HST really was but it also lets you see his writing process and where his ideas came from. He spent the first three years of this book struggling to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about the death of the American dream and the letters to Jim Silberman from Random House document his frustration and inability to construct a coherent book. Certain parts of this collection are repetitive for example a policeman hit him with a billy club during the 68 Democratic convention in Chicago and this story was told to pretty much everyone he know. And the constant letters to Jann Wenner from Rolling Stone arguing over expenses are also slightly repetitive too. The correspondences to and from Oscar Zeta Acosta are definitely worth getting this book for and the letters written in Vietnam during the fall of Saigon are very interesting. There is also this recurring theme about his annoyance with being constantly asked to write short passages to go on the cover of other people's books and how futile this process is. It's a good book to have in the bathroom and the short letter format works well for toilet reading.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This thick volume was a good look at the world of Hunter S Thompson from the time of his first real success with "Hell's Angels" to the release of his first collection "The Great Shark Hunt". The letters in this volume discuss his often rocky relationship with Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, his money troubles--he never became wealthy despite his apparent public success, his friendships with William Kennedy, Oscar Acosta, and George McGovern, among others, and (most importantly) his struggles trying to repeat the genuine quality of his triumvirate of successes in the late '60s and early '70s: "Hell's Angels", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72". Reading some of the long, sometimes repetitive letters, it soon becomes obvious that Thompson's lifestyle did as much to hurt his ability to write as it did to form his singular and still influential style. Although Thompson continued to write good articles right up until his suicide in 2005, he clearly struggled, and this volume of his letters paints a clear picture of the reasons for his rise, and for his long fall.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

You sometimes get the feeling from his published works that HST lived a carefree life of hedonism and financial success.These two volumes of correspondence counter that myth and paint a picture of a man in the throes of impending poverty,furiously burning the midnight oil in an attempt to extract fees and expense accounts to fend off the bailiff, and get credit at the local store.Its a hefty book and there's a few superfluous letters in there but on the whole its all compelling stuff if you want to know the truth behind the legend.Some will feel cheated and their perceptions shattered but I feel he doesn't come off that badly considering the pressures he puts himself under,trying to earn a crust freelancing and retaining his creative integrity as well as feeding his family at the same time.I'd rank this as a far better portrait of the man than any of the biographies that have been published and hope that a third volume will come around sometime in the future.

[laila* · Rating 5 out of 5]

YOURS IN DEEP SNOW, CIAO, INDEED, CAZART, OK FOR NOW, BEWARE, ETC., ETC., ETC.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This huge tome of Hunter Thompson's correspondence took me approximately two months to read, but that doesn't mean that I didn't like it. In fact, I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, the format leant itself to being put down for extended periods of time before returning to it. There's not much of any connection or narrative flow between one letter and the next, and most of the time, the other half of Thompson's correspondence is not reproduced here, so the reader is left to guess at what exactly has inspired him to hurl invective at this person or that one. That's most of what he does in this book, too--hurl invective, both at people he likes and people he's sincerely angry with. His correspondence with Oscar Acosta is full of such rancor, and moves over the course of the book from seeming like good-natured bickering between friends to real animosity. One wonders if Thompson and Acosta would have worked out their differences over time, were it not for the latter's untimely disappearance.

It's a lot of fun to read each individual letter, especially the lengthier ones that delve into more complicated thought processes that Thompson was working through at various stages of completing books or articles. There are several detailed outlines herein for books that were never completed, all of which are entertaining, but also of course frustrating due to the fact that we can't go read those books in full. There are also many interesting arguments back and forth between Thompson and his various publishers, in which we learn his exact feelings (generally predictable but hilarious fury) about the various edits and bowdlerizations he was forced to suffer throughout his career. It becomes clear that Thompson always took his writing very seriously, and had a lot invested in his work being read exactly the way he intended. He also got very frustrated with those who saw his "gonzo" style as just an excuse to make shit up. As far as Thompson was concerned, he was telling the truth in all of his pieces, even if he didn't always use a format that was approved by standard journalists of the time.

I wouldn't really recommend reading this book to anyone who isn't well-versed in Hunter S. Thompson's writing career; in order to be most properly enjoyed, the reader should probably already be familiar with "Hell's Angels," "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas," "Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail 72," and "The Great Shark Hunt," as work that ended up in all four of these books is discussed in detail here. As I said, not that much information is given to the reader outside of the actual text of the letters, so it'll be a lot harder to keep up if you haven't read those books. If you have, though, and you're interested in an even deeper examination of Thompson's life and mindset during that period of his career, "Fear And Loathing In America" will provide you with a very entertaining read. And honestly, you'll probably be better off setting it aside every now and then and cleansing your palate with something a bit lighter before returning. Trying to take this whole book in one fell swoop would probably amount to biting off more than one can chew.

[Jeremy Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fear and Loathing in America is Hunter S. Thompson's second collection of correspondence letters. Occasionally the letters are amusing, for example: Thompson's feud with a local CBS television affiliate over their broadcast times of Lassie. Most of the letters cover Hunter's money problems and arguments with his editors. The biggest reveal of this collection is that Hunter's public persona and his private life where one in the same. This collection is strictly for the Thompson obsessives.

[Sarah Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

In "Fear and Loathing in America," Hunter S. Thompson, the unyielding sultan of Gonzo journalism, unveils a kaleidoscopic trove of personal correspondences that pierce the veil of the 1960s and '70s with a visceral intensity only Thompson could muster. This vivacious sequel to "The Proud Highway" catapults the reader into the maelstrom of Thompson's life during an era of tumultuous change and rampant cultural upheaval.

With each page, we're hitchhikers on a wild ride through the mind of a literary maverick; from his quixotic bid for sheriff in Aspen to the birth of the iconic "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and onto the raucous political battleground of the '72 campaign trail. Thompson's letters—fiery missiles launched at friends, foes, and bewildered bystanders alike—are laced with the same electrifying prose and incendiary wit that propelled his published works into the stratosphere of American literature.

But this is not merely a collection of letters; it's an intimate mosaic of a man wrestling with the beasts of poverty, creativity, and familial duty. Far from the carefree hedonist some imagine, here we find Thompson burning the midnight oil, a relentless wordsmith hammering at his typewriter, fighting to keep the wolves of insolvency from his door. Each letter is a thread in the rich tapestry of Thompson's existence, revealing a man as complex and enigmatic as the era he so brilliantly illuminated.

"Fear and Loathing in America" is more than a book; it's a literary time capsule, an unflinching gaze into the soul of an American icon. It's a must-read for those daring enough to dive headlong into the chaos and genius of Hunter S. Thompson's world—a world where every word is a revolution, every sentence a battle cry in the fight for the freedom to write, live, and be unapologetically, irrepressibly alive.

[Jason Hackney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book to examine the dichotomy between Hunter S. Thompson, a man trying to scramble in the rat race and survive like the rest of us, and Raoul Duke, the characterization of Hunter S. Thompson. It also shows his development and meta-reflection on gonzo journalism over his prime years of 1968-1976.

A must for any HST fan and there are some gems of letters, especially the fragile, tense, and short relationship with his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas co-star, Oscar Zeta Acosta. Either way, you feel like an observer of Hunter's growth and development in a time needed for someone like him to zap the ugliness protruding out of every orifice of the so-called American Dream.

"...every once in a while I think it's healthy to clear the deck and lay a serious fireball on some of these bastards who lack either the grace or the integrity or both to understand that they can't have it both ways...the only sure and final cure is to write something so clearly and brutally original that only a fool would risk plagiarizing it....and that's what I'd like to do now..."Gonzo journalism" is essentially the "art" (or compulsion) of imposing a novelistic form on journalistic content...

...because on the high end is only one real difference between the two forms--and that is the rigidly vested interest in the maintenance of a polar (or strictly polarized) separation of "fiction" and "journalism" by at least two generations of New York-anchored writers who spent most of their working lives learning, practicing, and finally insisting (on) the esthetic validity of that separation...

...but for now the formal separation works in my favor, because it gives me a straw man to beat on, and stir the buggers up."

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite of the now-three books I've read by Hunter S. Thompson, which surprised me because (1) I liked Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in 1972 and Hell's Angels fairly well, and (2) I read this book more by chance than by choice--I wanted to revisit Hunter Thompson's work, and his other more famous titles were not available at my local Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh at the time.

This book is a lightly but artfully edited collection of Thompson's correspondence over the years stated in the title. In today's world of email and text messages and Tweets and other short bursts of messaging we've become increasingly used to digesting and creating with the rise of the internet and mobile devices. Which made reading a book that consisted mainly of letters to-and-from Hunter S. Thompson between 1968-1976 extremely interesting. Thompson was a prolific correspondent, penning over 20,000 letters in his lifetime, if I remember correctly. (tk fact check the number and source). Regardless, letter-writing was a major part of Thompson's day-to-day work and social life. It was also a way of getting and receiving private information and news that today would be tweeted to the world instead of being tailored in voluminous and often very funny detail for certain recipients' eyes only.

If nothing else, this book reminded me of the utility not only of writing letters, but it reminded me how to write them well--Thompson's letters are fascinating. For anyone who's interested in the ways people try to use language to persuade, influence, coerce, intimidate, charm, and have other effects on an intended audience, this book should be high on your to-read list. 5 stars.

[Corto · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a fan of Hunter S. Thompson, this is a must read. This collection of profane and fascinating letters allows you to see the evolution of his great projects - some which never made it off the ground, as well as his intellectual grappling with the birth of his Gonzo style. In this volume we also see his running battles with editors (especially Jann Wenner), publishers, the prestige press elite, mail order companies (his letter accompanying a return of a coat was...hilarious), and his frenemy Oscar Zeta Acosta. Not to mention his constant pursuit of monies owed to him, as well as expenses withheld. He corresponds with some fans, including George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, and Gary Hart. And...there's just so much journo-world dirt...

His brilliance as a writer and wordsmith comes through in these letters, and fleshes him out as a flawed but pugnacious man. (Which, isn't a surprise to anyone.) Combined as a volume, there are several interesting and compelling story arcs that run through this collection. Despite the size of the volume, and my uneasiness at delving into a collection of someone's personal letters, this was a compelling page turner! Hilarious, ridiculous, bombastic, and occasionally tragic, this is a behind the scenes look at the period in which he exploded onto the national consciousness. Highly recommended for HST aficionados.

Now, off to read his son's book...

[David Brandes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sad book, in the end. To have a happy, or rather hopeful ending, it would have to end somewhere around 1973-74. But that would not be the whole, tragic picture. The last couple hundred pages are at times hard to get through, for though it’s oftentimes subtext, you can feel the dissipation of a great talent and power. Drugs, debt and fame presumably. Makes you think maybe if one of them was taken care of he could’ve dealt with the other two. As it is he could not deal with all three. That such a brilliant writer, having sold three classic books already, should be constantly worrying about the IRS, credit card debt, getting paid proper royalties, getting his expense tab paid, nearly 15 years into his career, is a significant part of the tragedy.
Forgetting this for a moment, the first 3/4 of the book are exceptional. His writing, his perspective is on point, and at times you wonder if he was the only sane person in the world at the time. Whatever eye-of-the-storm clarity Dylan had in the 60’s may well have been transferred to HST at some point.
You get to see his radicalization in real time. Starting, at the beginning of the book, with the ‘68 DNC in Chicago, through to Nixons inauguration and beyond. He had great hopes and vision for a new kind of politics in America that, both on the local and national stage, just barely lost.
He felt these losses deeply and was troubled by them, yet did not give up hope that maybe, next time, if some crucial elements were added and subtracted, the dream would win.
Hunter Thompson was the F. Scott Fitzgerald of the sixties, as was his wish. He saw that the power of The Great Gatsby was the eye of Nick Caraway, and he took it to its befittingly unnatural conclusion. He had a finger on the pulse of the times and could describe it and define it better than anyone I’ve read. Yet they both came to embody a type of dissipation that came after the era died away.

[Jade Dove · Rating 5 out of 5]

The letters of the good doctor were as wild, real, surreal, confrontational, rambling, and witty as Thompson himself and read like the best of his journalism or fiction.
These letters, addressed to everyone from the FCC to Jimmy Carter to George McGovern to Sue Grafton to newspapers to Tom Wolfe, and a plethora of friends, colleagues, family members, publishers, politicians, and enemies—and his enemies were legion—show that the public side of Thompson was the same as the private side.
Hunter was Hunter 24/7. Whether he was ranting at Jann Wenner or going off on tangents about the swine in public office, he was always himself and always sharp with a scathing remark.
Every facet of his life is on display here and numerous insights into the mind whirring behind the shades and cigarette holder. It’s like looking directly inside Hunter’s mind at what made him tick.
If you are as fascinated and reverent for Thompson as I am, this is essential reading. (I may not always have agreed with his views or actions but respect him for living life his way and his honesty at calling out the bullshit and I get the sense that who we are at our core is very similar).
If Hunter isn’t your scene, this will not persuade you. But to each their own. If Hunter himself were here, he’d understand.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

You'd think one would get tired of 6 years worth of correspondence in re: asking for payment, asking for advances, demanding payments, asking for loans, bitching about money (payments and advances and expenses), and after all that, begging for editorial compass. But not here. As good as he was as a political journalist, he comes out looking even better after reading these 6 years worth of missives. Wish there were more folks like him now; we need them.

[Matt McGlynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine if you’ve read a ton of Hunter’s other works first but don’t start here.

This consists of a lot of letters and personal correspondences between Hunter and close friends, family, editors, and even a clothing company while he tried to return a jacket. It’s fine if you’ve exhausted all his other works but don’t start here. For a better collection of bite sized works check out “The Great Shark Hunt”.

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not too impressed. Thompson wasn't a "wild a crazy guy" in his letters. Mostly he just writes about politics and $$. He's constantly badgering Rolling Stone's Editor/Publisher to pay Thompson what Rolling Stones owes him, or he's threatening to sue someone for libel. Lots of serious political letters to about Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, etc. Many of the letters are Rambling, with a capital "R" and were no doubt written under the influence. For Thompson fans only.

[David Critchfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the movie words of Johnny Depp: "There he goes, one of God's own prototypes, a high-powered mutant of some kind, never even considered for mass production, too weird to live but too rare to die." Yes, this could have described HST, and as he has said, "Remember that they laughed at Thomas Edison too."

[John Jorgensen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't look at it close enough when purchasing it. Didn't find out until I got it home that is was just correspondence between HST and various folks. He is not as good a correspondent as he is a writer.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another collection of letters from the typewriter of Mr. Gonzo Journalism himself.

As always, endlessly crude, brutal, savage, and entertaining.

Good fun if your head is in the right place and you’re not too easily offended.

[Ariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once I had read the novels, I wanted more HST. His news articles are worth the read. Many of these enjoy from HST's anger and irony.

[دانا · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely love Hunter S. Thompson. Great read.

[Dick Vogel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outrageously funny. Hunter is a hip genius with an outrageous sense of humor. It took 32 hours to listen to the audio version.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half dozen times HST says something brilliant the rest of the time he's a raving lunatic ...

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit too much

[Krokki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raw, wild and wonderful!

Buy the ticket, take the ride - avec outlaw journalist and political junkie Hunter Thompson, through the tumultuous late 60s/early 70s.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best writer there has ever been.