Keep This Quiet Too!: More Adventures with Hunter S. Thompson, Milton Klonsky, Jan Mensaert

by Margaret Harrell, Huntet Thompson (Illustrator), Jan Mensaert (Illustrator)

In "Keep This Quiet Too!" Margaret relocates to Morocco with her exotic, brilliant but unstable Belgian poet husband, Jan Mensaert. Living in villages there, she experiences what it's like to cook on charcoal daily and shop with a basket in open air markets. Meanwhile, in once-yearly trips to the US she gets fed a diet of one-liner advice, deeply digested and wise, from genius-poet Milton Klonsky. She also gets Gonzo updates from Hunter Thompson - two relationships that never lose their hold or significance, even necessity. From Morocco, to Belgium, to Switzerland, and the United States, Margaret pits wits with - and learns from - and grows through these close - sometimes romantic - relationships with men who exemplify authenticity. At one point, trying desperately to find her, Hunter writes, "Dear Margaret, Where are you and why? I've lost track completely. My last definite word was from a toilet-hole in Algiers." He wants her to work on his next manuscript. This is 1971. Moving from 1970 (Belgium/Cairo) to 1986 (Jung Institute Zurich), the book ends up fittingly at his Owl Farm. Where else could the last two chapters take place? There, she reintroduces herself to Hunter. In fine form, he is trying to take the romance to the next level. Actually, they both are intent on it."A passionately written memoir that doesn't sit around being fit and proper and straight laced . . . As a key to the lives of these three writers it is idiosyncratic and in age where blandness is the norm, it is a pleasure to go on her journey and find out a little about what made these men tick and what drove her to them "- Eric Jacobs - Beat Scene print magazine (UK) # 70"Margaret A. Harrell has done it again. In her brutally compassionately explicitly honest second autobiography KEEP THIS QUIET TOO! Harrell manages to repeatedly pull the rug out from under the reader. She travels from North Carolina to New York City to Morocco to Belgium to India to Switzerland to Owl Farm, and many other places,...in search of her self. From depth psychology to dream analysis to hangoutologies to ecstatic love making to out of body astral travels to spirit guides, adventures and misadventures, she is guided and guides herself ever homeward to her own heart and soul. Margaret A. Harrell's new, second, autobiography, like volume one, is a masterpiece." - Outlaw Poet Ron Whitehead“I’m not crazier than you,” Harrell reports once saying to her friend Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson’s “No, but you talk crazier.” That exchange, recounted in an introductory author’s note, kicks off the second in a series of memoirs (after Keep This Quiet!) by Harrell that examine her relationship with three fascinating men of letter ...

"With an eye for surprising detail, Harrell conjures a charged and vivid milieu, even as the story she tells is often painful. ... Readers fascinated by these men, her world, and numerology and transcendentalism will find themselves on a journey with grand destinations throughout the globe and within the author’s consciousness." - BookLife Review

"Keep THIS Quiet Too! is a real-life saga of living and learning with eyes and ears open. At times adventurous, at times sensual, Keep This Quiet Too! hinges upon the complexities of human relationships, especially the challenges posed by the heart-wrenching feelings of love that may or may not be fully requited. Highly recommended." - Midwest Book Review"An honest and unflinching examination of the choices we make." - San Francisco Book Review

285 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 12, 2012

Reviews

[Jeffrey John Frisone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very engaging

Wow! This book shares with us the authors adventurous life. Through the course of the book we see how she changes and grows as a person. Written very well. Reading this was a fun experience.