Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

by Hunter S. Thompson

Kingdom of Fear is billed as a memoir, but in essence, all of Hunter S. Thompson's books could fit into this category since his life and work have always been tightly bound together by a mythology largely of his own making. (After all, this is the man who, before earning a single dollar as a writer, began meticulously saving a copy of every letter he ever sent.) Still, this is certainly an unconventional memoir, but then what would you expect from the father of gonzo journalism? In these pages Thompson manages to dig deep and reveal a few "loathsome secrets" without offering the kind of personal details he has always avoided. His childhood, for instance, is basically summed up in a sentence: "I look back on my youth with great fondness, but I would not recommend it as a working model to others." He does, however, reflect upon his considerable legacy, including his well-known, and admittedly exaggerated, use of controlled substances ("The brutal reality of politics alone would probably be intolerable without drugs"), as well as offer assessments of his own work, such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ("It's as good as The Great Gatsby and better than The Sun Also Rises").

In this collection of twisted parables and outlaw adventures, Thompson writes about his early run-ins with agents of authority and the lessons learned; his stint in the Air Force and the beginning of his journalism career; his unsuccessful, though illuminating, bid for Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado in 1970 as the Freak Power candidate; the casualties and unintended consequences thus far in the War on Terror; and numerous examples of present-day injustice and hypocrisy--all with his characteristic mix of brutal frankness laced with humor. He also offers his own take on state of the Union: "The prevailing quality of life in America--by any accepted methods of measuring--was inarguably freer and more politically open under Nixon than it is today in this evil year of Our Lord 2002." Thompson continues to make even the most deadly serious subject matter endlessly entertaining. --Shawn Carkonen

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

351 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

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

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure this is going to break my recent run of 2 star reads. This is in the foreword. The author has gone to visit his old friend Jack Nicholson and in the back of his jeep are "all kind of jokes and gimcracks" to entertain Nicholson's children.

"“In addition to the bleeding elk heart, there was a massive outdoor amplifier, a tape recording of a pig being eaten alive by bears, a 1,000,000-watt spotlight, and a 9-mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol with teak-wood handles and a box of high-powered ammunition. There was also a 40-million-candlepower parachute flare that would light up the valley for 40 miles for 40 seconds that would seem to anyone lucky enough to be awake at the time like the first blinding flash of a mid-range nuclear device that might signal the end of the world.”

When the detonation of these devices from a precipice overlooking the Nicholson household fails to produce the anticipated joyful welcome, Hunter feels, disconcertingly, that he is “being snubbed.”

Now if my father had had friends like that....

[Still · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could have given this collection 5 stars but I became tired of HST’s relentless celebrity name dropping. God almighty… I never want to see Johnny Depp’s name in print again for as long as I live.

For HST fans this is a must-read or a must-covet. His hatred of who he refers to as “the man child” Bush (that’s Dubya to the rest of you) is breathtakingly accurate if not well apt. After all, Bush starting an endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan was akin to a mindless idiot playing with his own shit. And yes, please don’t hand me that tired “but Obama” argument. Yes. President Obama contributed to the clusterfuck.

There’s fun to be found here as well as the usual polemics. I thoroughly enjoyed HST’s accounts of antagonizing the wealthy swine who accounted for much of the destruction of Aspen, Colorado. Then there’s the riveting account of a phony sexual assault allegation leveled by former 1970s-80s porn star and “director” Gail Palmer. Those charges led Aspen authorities to raid Hunter’s home in order to place him in custody for rape and to conduct an illegal search for drugs.

I had fun. I spent over two weeks reading these “essays” but it was an enjoyable read and I was once more angered by HST’s decision to end his life. Warren Zevon wrote, “if I start acting stupid, I’ll shoot myself” which makes for a great song lyric but it’s not something you want to take too close to heart.

I wish Hunter S. Thompson hadn’t decided to take the chickenshit way out.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It never got weird enough for me". -Hunter S. Thompson
This is Hunter at his finest. This book was one of those that you wish had just one more page at the end for all of eternity. Kingdom of Fear is written in a loose biographical form, in true Thompson style, it leapfrogs from stories of pre-adolescent vandalism, to scathing rants of George W. Bush in the same chapter, but somehow never looses its cohesiveness.
The stories of Hunter and Johnny Depp exchanging cars and checkbooks will make you laugh like a hyena, spit out your coffee and piss yourself all at once, his legendary run for Sheriff of Aspen will make you want to become more politically active, his take on 9-11 and the horrors of the Bush administration might just make you shed a tear or two.
No one does political satire better. This book makes me sad that not another one will ever be written like it, and it makes me grateful that I still have plenty of Thompsons books left to read.

[Amy Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of the easiest things to forget about hunter thompson is that he was s.m.a.r.t. really smart. the exaggerations and drug tales and violent fleur-de-lis are a lovely bonus, but at the heart of my love for hunter thompson is his straight-arrow sense of right and wrong, his personal sense of outrage at the evils of the world, and his ability to stay sharp in the face of the low level, grinding mediocrities that pave the road to hell.

this collection of essays is more personal than some of his other work, and it spans his career from beginning to end. most affecting and chilling for me are his ruminations on the current bush administration. but all of it is compelling. it's vibrant, passionate, funny, bitter, and true. which is everything i really need.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only “memoir” part of this “memoir” is the beginning where Thompson gives an anecdote that may be true about how he became skeptical of authority at 9 years old. The rest is comprised of more vignettes some of which may be true and others for which parts may be true.

There are all the Thompson motifs, the shooting incidents, drug crazed trips in Cadillacs, show girls and porn stars, brushes with the police, and political incorrectness.

One recurring theme, the loss of liberties, exemplified by a 66 hour search of his farm based on the say so of one “Witness” and the life jail term for a woman who was with a man who committed a murder- suicide.

If you are a Thompson fan, you’ve already read this book. If not, you may want to start with other works.

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always been a huge, huge, fan of Hunter's work. Kingdom of Fear is a collection of various writings he did, kind of like a memoir, where he rants and raves and rants some more. In his typical Gonzo style, he takes the reader on a bizarre and often utterly 'weird' ride through his colourful and always interesting life. Opening with his first encounter with the FBI when he was nine years old (and no doubt sparking his life-long distrust of authority), the book whizzes through his musings of various scandals of the day, what's going in the hazy world of politics, his time in Cuba and so much more.

His tell-it-like-it-is attitude simply emphasises everything that is wrong in today's overly PC society and his voice is sorely missed. He really was an extraordinary man and I would love nothing more than to read a book about what he thinks of the world today.

We salute you Hunter, may many follow in your footsteps, throw caution to the wind and just write what they feel.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: Written on Sep 03 2007, when I was much younger. I detach myself entirely from the review and its contents.

Here’s Yr. Autobiography. Mahalo. Res Ipsa Loquitur.

Is it just me, or is this gent just a wee bit too forceful with his opinions?

Before the sad loss of Hunter S. Thompson, human marihuana chimney and perpetual idol to each new batch of college students, the Colorado-based chronicler of injustice and, um—sports—left this rambling and shambling document, labelled erroneously by Penguin Books as an “autobiography.”

However, before we go just a jot further, it might help to explain the purpose of this mighty man on earth, an award-winning journalist, author of the Great American Classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and free-speaking powerhouse of political retribution delivered with a sly middle finger to the establishment (and everyone he deemed stupid enough to disagree with him). His purpose among us was as some kind of stoned harbinger of truth, someone who actively sought the life of an outlaw, existing on the parameters of a nation he viewed corrupt on the inside and exposing the rot festering inside the charade of civilisation. His persona was one of a troublemaking thrill-seeker and outspoken cult genius, writing drug-fuelled fiction which varied from readable to overrated while retaining full exclusivity over the phrase “gonzo journalist.”

Kingdom of Fear, subtitled vacantly Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century remains true to the ranting and hellbent persona Dr. Thompson perfected in his fiction. It is narrated in the same rude, crass and matter-of-fact manner prevalent in his other books. Being unschooled in his canon, it would be false of me to mention examples and then compare works, but I have glazed over Songs of the Doomed and been dazzled at the weight of both political insight and indeed personal disgust. His most famous work also inspired me to let my imagination run riot within the confines of both a prose approach as well as the events of a story themselves. I have him to thank for popping my surrealist cherry with that 2003 piece about the hedgehog in the car on the pretend milk motorway. I burned all four copies.

Part One

The book is divided into three parts, but there is no real structure imposed upon the manner Thompson chooses to span his entire existence. He opts instead for a similar rambling approach to his previous works, which for an autobiography spells only fear and loathing in this reader. When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Turn Pro provides the odd piece of genuine insight into the formative stages of Dr. Thompson, but one of the biggest flaws of the book is the glib tone with which he chooses to express himself. There are times when Thompson wishes to inform us of his development into an intellectual and free-thinking journalist with a noble and just cause on the planet, but the lack of focus makes the experience little more than a series of anecdotes, often arrogant moments of blatant self-aggrandising and an exercise in keeping the reader miles and miles out of his personal and emotion inner realm.

The opening nugget entitled The Witness introduces the continuous catalogue of his countless legal troubles, the most prominent case being a run-in with a sex worker determined to take advantage of him. The tone then alternates in this first part between fiery attacks on the Bush administration and an almost manic attempt to right old wrongs or clear up previous indiscretions. This makes for far less interesting or fulfilling reading than perhaps just a basic overview of his life, and since there is no structure, the novel begins to dart between a messy series of his old articles, selected news reports of his mischief-making and brief pieces where he howls his consternation for the fools in charge and the reader is reassured by his foul-mouthed honesty.

Part Two

At first, the proposition seems much more tantalising as Dr. Thompson moves onto his specialist subject with Politics Is The Act of Controlling Your Environment, the lengthiest section where he discusses his attempts to stand for mayor of Aspen in 1970. The episode creates a jarring portrait of someone who should under no circumstances stand for office, but who ends up looking like the finest substitute compared to the other stooges in the running. As ever with Thompson, America is depicted as a place in almost constant political chaos and flux, and despite the illusion of order and sanity, the nation is at the mercy of some kind of raging “whore beast” making peace impossible. This point is hammered home clear enough, and helps explain his own exaggerated lifestyle choices such as tinkering around with firearms, vast quantities of drugs and his night manager job at the strip club (mentioned one too many times for comfort).

Seize The Night and Speedism move onto the topic of hedonism. Thompson was unrepentant about his lifestyle choices until his death, including his excessive use of drugs and high-speed thrills. He is adamant that all the decisions he made were out of sheer lust for life, writing about the most outrageous episodes of his life in explicit detail, before he states that all those who thought he was as OTT as he might have been in his fiction were stupid people. The portrait he creates of himself in this book is not one of a sympathetic man, but instead an enigmatic bulls**ter from the highest echelons of bulls**t, determined to keep his wild-man mythology going like his idol Bob Dylan. It all seems an attempt just to keep the fires of his homebrewed bile and contempt for the government nice and warm, and without having to actually present any academic or reasoned opinions behind what he says.

Part Three

The final section continues in the same vein, with random vignettes and rambling narratives divided by handy little asterisks and one or two page-filling quotes (he includes a whole poem from Robinson Jeffers). Witness III is one of the more regrettable inclusions here, a lengthy news report of a court case Thompson won interspersed with self-conscious comments written on a ratty old typewriter. It is around this point my patience for the book began to break down and I had to force the remainder of the way through. By choosing to stitch sections from newspapers and so forth into his life story, and focusing largely on legal episodes instead of himself, he is unable to adopt enough sincerity or create a portrait of an appealing man to win me over. Some of the photographs and letters here look like nothing more than shameless page-filler.

This section also includes the famous incident with Jack Nicholson, who he was accused of “trying to kill” and his bizarre field trip to Cuba where for some reason Johnny Depp was invited to join in as he reported on the unstable political situation over there. The most famous episodes in his life, especially towards the end of it when he had become something of a celebrity writer, had to be included since shock and hyperbole had been Thompson’s bread and butter since the 1960s. I know—how very cynical of me.

Kingdom of Fear failed to engage me enough to recommend. I believe there is a reason for this. It should never have been written in the first place. Hunter S. Thompson was someone whose life should have been chronicled by besotted admirers and lesser writers than himself. He should have puffed out of his life a cult hero, leaving behind an outstanding body of unmistakable journalism and immortal novels, but instead this work feels like a self-satisfied and sloppy self-portrait written by a bloated and arrogant jerk with his halo just a touch crooked. The humour in the book is childish and tiresome, rarely clever, and the overall impression from the novel is that Hunter S. Thompson was an unlovable, contemptuous and ranting soothsayer of political injustice, and a hard-bitten solider in the blood-filled trench of life with a foul mouth and complete lack of self-restraint or responsibility.

Then again—perhaps that was the point.

[David Sarkies · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Life and Times of Hunter S Thompson
31 August 2018

Looking at my previous review I feel that I may not have given this book the credit that it deserves, though that does have a lot to do with the length of my reviews (if you want to call them as such since I tend to write about what I got out of the book as opposed to anything else). Well, this book certainly tells you an awful lot more about the Hunter than did Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, though I do sort of wonder, if he was still alive, what he would think about the huge number of mass gun killings that seem to be plaguing the United States. The reason I say this is that one thing that I really picked up from this book was that he really loves his guns.

One thing that stands out in this piece is his style of writing, which pretty much has its own name – Gonzo journalism. Actually, he wasn’t the one who developed the style, nor gave it its name, because it was apparently Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood that is suggested to be the first of its style. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how one would describe this method, though of course one could simply say that it is the way Hunter S Thompson writes.

Look, the book seems to pretty much go all over the place. You will have a story, or a piece, about what is happening in 2002, when the book was written, and suddenly you will jump back to the mid-eighties, or even the mid-seventies. For instance, we have a story about how he decided to go to Grenada because there happened to be a war going on there, though his suggestion was that it wasn’t quite a war, but rather an example of push-over. Interestingly, another suggestion is that it was more of a distraction from the fact that some barracks in Lebanon had been bombed earlier, killing a huge number of US marines. Mind you, it wasn’t as if the invasion wasn’t deserved, since some dictator had just taken over the place, but then again it isn’t as if this is the first example of this happening, and one would wander why the United States hadn’t learnt from their misadventures with Cuba, but then again they didn’t send the full brunt of the American army in to deal with Castro.

Actually, talking about Cuba, this section is also followed up with a story about the time that Thompson decided to go to Cuba, believing the rumour that American journalists are treated like kings there. This didn’t turn out to be the case, and it probably is what is expected in a dictatorship like Cuba – yeah, I’m not sure if Castro is really going to want journalists wandering around telling everybody what the place is really like, and this is also Thompson, who really doesn’t pull any punches when he is writing. Oh, and apparently Johnny Depp, a good friend of Thompson’s, was also on his way there, and with all of the hoo-haa about Depp’s dogs here in Australia, you can probably imagine the scene that he caused when he arrived at the airport.

Yeah, Thompson’s writing – one thing I noticed is that you get all of these people who want to write like their favourite author – you know, Gonzo style. Well, I can appreciate that, but the problem is that there is only one person that could ever write like Hunter S Thompson, and that is the man himself. Look, Gonzo may be great, but the problem is that Thompson sort of knows a lot of people, and a lot of famous people as well – there aren’t many of us who can get away with pranking Jack Nicholson. The other thing is that Hunter really did live pretty close to the line when it came to the law. For instance he would regularly speed, and then there is his drug habit, which he wasn’t at all that shy about. That’s the thing, to write like Thompson, you have to be like Thompson, and you have to be willing to really stick your neck out – oh, and you also need to know Johnny Depp.

Oh, and it isn’t as if he didn’t get into trouble, though you could say that he was one of those teflon individuals, being that nothing seems to stick. For instance, there was this time when some woman decided to press charges against him for an alleged sexual harassment. Honestly, the truth of the matter is going to be up in the air, and only his wife Anita really knows what was going on. However, it escalated pretty quickly in that the DA decided to search his house, for eleven hours, and then also add drug charges to the case. This pretty much blew up in their face because Thompson proceeded to challenge them on the grounds of the Fourth Amendment – illegal search and seizure. The argument was that searching his house for eleven hours was completely unreasonable, and also argued that if the police were to search anybody’s house for that amount of time, they would be sure to find enough evidence to literally convict anybody.

One final topic is Hunter’s opinion of George W Bush. He would regularly refer to him as the child president, which once again makes me wonder what he would think of the current president, who honestly seems to govern much more like a child than George Bush ever did. Yet in a way, Thompson really does seem to be an enigma because there is so much about him that says to me that he should be a Republican, yet he isn’t. Still, sadly, he didn’t live to see the election of Obama, nor of Trump, and the thing is that there is a suggestion that people do change their voting habits at least once in their lives.

Ahh, yes, The Kingdom of Fear, a concept that I almost forgot to talk about. There are two elements to this, the kingdom, and the fear. Some have suggested that the American political system is rigged so that only a select few are able to take the top job, and that it is so dominated by the two party system that only those who happen to be in the know are able to get into power. Mind you, Donald Trump, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sort of blew that concept out of the water. Then there is the secret government, the one that is controlled from the board rooms of the Fortune 500. In a way it is a question of freedom, and one that Thompson does address, particularly since with the flick of the wrist, a whole segment of society can suddenly discover that they are criminals. Allegedly, the drug laws were originally brought about in an attempt to crack down on illegal Mexican immigrants.

Now for the concept of Fear – America really does seem to be a country ruled by fear. It is one of the arguments of the pro-gun lobby – they need their guns to protect themselves. It is as if there is this constant fear that somebody will come along and take away their freedom. Interestingly there are many, many other free countries in the world that don’t seem to be ruled by the same amount of fear. Mind you, the media doesn’t help either, because you simply have to open up your Facebook feed to discover some exaggerated article about how we are in danger.

The final theme (and I know I have been saying this for a while, but there is so much to the writings of Thompson that I simply have to keep writing) is the whole idea of the American Dream. What is it? I guess this is one of those concepts that many people have been trying to understand for a very long time. Thompson seems to believe that this whole experiment is a complete failure, which is why much of this book is devoted to the idea of the death of the dream. My understanding is that the dream is about being able to be who you want to be, and that nobody else can come in and stop you from doing so. This is all well and good, as long as it doesn’t involve impinging on other people’s dreams. Yet once again, this seems to be flawed, with the dream only being available to some, and simply out of reach of others. Honestly, there is a lot more that I could say about this, but I will bring this rather long review to an end with a meme.

[Hugo Lester · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah quality stuff thanks Doc.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first and only Hunter S. Thompson book I’ve read and have been repeatedly assured that it was by far not his best. That’s good, because this one was a strange trip where I spent most of it just psychoanalyzing myself. Starting this book, I was thrilled. He was iconoclastic and funny and had a fuck the system attitude that I still admire but personally have failed to live out. Then he was talking about himself for a while… and a while… and a while. It became annoying and too self-indulgent. Then it became clear that I couldn’t believe anything he was writing- and he seemed happy with that fact- and I was left not knowing what to believe. Then, ultimately, depressed. I realized that his manipulation of facts to suit a narrative was no longer the outsider perspective shaking up the system, now it is the system. It is, in America, Fox News and Msnbc. It is Russia. It is China. It is everywhere where unapologetically subverting truth has become accepted.

In Thompson’s heyday in America- the 70’s and 80’s- mainstream news pedaled a narrative as well. Undoubtedly, it was biased and manipulative too. But the difference now is that there is not even an attempt at truth or even lip service to it. Everything is subjective. Everything open to perspective. All facts are disputable. We live in age where even suggesting there is a truth draws scoffs from a significant population of people. As if nothing at all can be known. More distressing, unlike before when we may have been unclear as to some truths, we now accept blatant lies as “spin”. Thompson openly admits he manufactured stories to give a sense of the time and people. That may have been a rebellious way to achieve perspective in a time when bias seemed hidden and masked. Now openly manufacturing stories has been co-opted by the mainstream and what once was used to undermine the system is now used as a foundation for the system. Yes, I definitely fear this fucking Kingdom.

Had I read Thompson at a different time, I’m sure my impression would be much more favorable. Now I simply cringe at all those who openly subvert facts under the mantle of exposing untruth.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always loved Thompson's books, and I think this might be my favorite (other than Fear and Loathing which is untouchable). This one is his most personal, and is his last actual book (Hey, Rube was a compilation of online sports articles so I don't count it) before he blew his brains out.

This one includes ranting about 9/11 and the Bush Administration (if you thought his eulogy of Nixon was savage, check out what he has to say about Bush Jr.), his musings on the 1968 Democratic Convention (a must-read if you give a shit), tales of his early childhood (including his first run-in with the FBI), a description of his first ride on a Ducati super-bike, and random stories about his worldwide travels.

If you love Hunter, don't miss this. If you don't, well... fuck off.

[iansomething · Rating 4 out of 5]

“By the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel… to make you see.”

Let’s not get carried away here. Freedom was yesterday in this country. Its value has been discounted. The only freedom we truly crave today is freedom from Dumbness. Nothing else matters.

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” - Mark Twain.

People ran screaming out of their houses like chickens gone crazy with fear.

from summer heat and peach trees up to chilly bleak timeline and then to the snowcapped peaks of the Continental Divide, where wild beasts roam and humans live in pain.

Morality is temporary, Wisdom is permanent. . . . Ho ho. Take that one to be with you tonight.

Weird behaviour is natural in smart children, just as curiosity is to a kitten.

Anything worth doing is worth doing right.

My father had a tendency to hunch early over the radio when the news of the day was foul.

I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on Fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed.

Beware, son. There is Trouble lurking out there in the darkness, sure as hell. Wild beasts and cruel people, and some of them will pounce on your neck and try to tear your head off, if you’re not careful.

or even beyond the imagination of a teenage girl from Denver being dragged away from her family by a pack of diseased wolves. Nothing compares to it. The terror of a moment like that rolls over you like a rush of hot scum in a sewer pipe.

That kind of flotsam is never far from my mind.
Flotsam - the wreckage of a ship or its cargo found floating on or washed up by the sea.

No Music
+
Bad TV
=
Bad Mood
+
No Pages

There are no jokes when we start talking about introducing saltwater Eels into people’s body cavities.

I hadn’t adjusted too well to society - but I learned at the age of fifteen that to get by you had to find the one thing you can do better than anybody else… at least this was so in my case.

I knew I was a good journalist. I knew I was a good writer, but I felt like I got through a door just as it was closing.

Justice has never been cheap in America, not even for the innocent.

They wanted to soak him down with mace, then beat him to jelly with baseball bats.

You can’t Hoard fun. It has no shelf life.

I was always armed and sullen, living from moment to moment and ripped to the tits on my own adrenaline.

There was a time when I was vaguely worried by questions like these, but no longer. There are some questions that you can only worry about for so long, until finally they become meaningless.

The Witness was hard to insult; she was dumb and also professionally inured from the sex business to caring what people really thought or felt. The triple-X brand will make you thick-skinned after a while, like an armadillo.

Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube.

We are motorcycle people; we walk tall and we laugh at whatever’s funny. We shit on the chests of the Weird. . . .

It’s as good as The Great Gatsby and better than The Sun Also Rises - Hunter’s comments on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

“I made my choice a long time ago,” the Doctor says as he peers through the scope. “Some say I’m a lizard with no pulse.”

I woke up in the bathtub - who knows how much later - to the sound of the hookers shrieking next door. The New York Times had fallen in and blackened the water. For many hour I tossed and turned like a crack baby in a cold hallway.

This is why God made whiskey, and also why Wild Turkey comes in $300 shaped canisters during most of the Christmas season, and also why criminal shitheads all over New York City will hit you up for $100 tips or they’ll twist your windshield wipers into spaghetti and urinate on your door handles.

I was sure I’d seen somebody watching me from inside the darkened kitchen window.

Hungry people have the cunning of wild beasts. A thing that seemed strange and wrong yesterday can seem perfectly reasonable tomorrow, or vice versa.

He not busy being born is busy dying - Bob Dylan

It is Sunday morning now and I am writing a love letter. Outside my kitchen window the sky is bight and planets are colliding. My head is hot and I feel a little edgy. My brain is beginning to act like a V-8 engine with the sparkplug wires crossed. Things are no longer what they seem to be. My telephones are haunted, and animals whisper at me from unseen places.

Cruelty and perversion are common jokes in the oil and orgy business.

Sane is a dangerous word.

If you think the works is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear.

The story at Jack Nicholson’s home (or on the outskirts) is bonkers and hilarious. The clue of the elk heart’s ziplock bag’s exterior thermal condition, gave it all away.

[Sylvia Joyce]

Pretty good overall. The first half is very strong writing

[iso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of short stories. Hard to say which were true and which were fiction but all were fun. I enjoyed the ride - unlike any other memoir I have read.

[David Jessick · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always his writing and view of the world are timeless.

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kingdom of Fear - “It would be easy to say that we owe it all to the Bush family from Texas, but that would be too simplistic. They are only errand boys for the vengeful, bloodthirsty cartel of Jesus-freaks and super-rich money mongers who have ruled this country for at least the last 20 years, and arguably for the past 200. They take orders well, and they don’t ask too many questions.”

Ah Hunter, you had me from this quote in the “Memo from the Sports Desk"! And, for me, that memo might have been the best part of this book!

This collection could also have been titled, or sub-titled, "Fear and Loathing in Woody Creek Colorado" as many of the pieces in here have to do with that town, or the surrounding area, including Aspen. I had read a few of the tales in "Happy Birthday, Jack Nicholson", but gladly re-read them in here! My only issue with the collection is that it is all over the place, both chronologically and topically, and never feels cohesive. I guess I was looking for more of a novel. But the stories themselves are fun to read, and totally and completely representative of Hunter S. Thompson!

[Luke Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining read, since it's hard not to be entertained by Hunter S. Thompson's rantings, but ultimately disappointing. It get three stars instead of two based solely on Thompson's outsized reputation and my fondness for it. Ostensibly an autobiography, but really not one at all, this book is just a series of snippets and recollections, some of which are true but most of which are probably not, even in Thompson's loose version of what constitutes "truth". Pretty dissatisfying really.

I think this review from NYT sums it up nicely: "Whenever 'Kingdom of Fear' brushes up against the aching interior spaces that feed genuine autobiography -- family, lost friends, regrets -- he recoils and hides in bad gonzo clichés. You'd think that at this point in his life -- Thompson is 65 -- he'd be more interested in exorcising his demons than in making cartoons out of them."

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

"We live in dangerous times. Our armies are powerful, and we spend billions of dollars a year on new prisons, yet our lives are still ruled by fear. We are like pygmies lost in a maze. We are not at War, we are having a nervous breakdown." (p.27)

"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world- a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us...No redeeming social value. Just whores." (p.66)

"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If a government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy." (p.110)

"Anybody who can do one thing better than anyone else in the world is a natural friend of mine." (p.272)

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kept stopping and scratching my head. "Hmmmmmm," I'd think, is this story a hallucination or could it really have happened?"

Kingdom of Fear is a collection of exploits, letters and mad ramblings by Hunter S. Thompson. I love this man, except when I don't, but I rarely don't want to be him. Thompson's journalistic exploits are well-documented, but is it possible that a mountain lion just up and jumped into the back of his car as he drove (stoned, as always) up the California coast?

Regardless of how much truth is stretched, it is an eye-opener, making me grateful once again that I live in a country (Mexico) that is so transparently corrupt and poorly managed that we know what to expect - At least it's free here. Thompson's stories leave no doubt about the end of constitutional freedom in the U.S.

And I've experienced myself, too.

[Nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hunter S. Thompson's last book, where he describes pushing an enormous mailbox in the path of an oncoming bus, firing a parachute flare at Jack Nicholson's house in the middle of the night, jumping a Ducati superbike sideways over some train tracks, running for sherriff of Aspen, and having a mountain lion fall in the back of his convertible near Big Sur.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had my ups and downs with this one and I think that stems from the fact that I was trying to read and understand a book slating American politics of the latter quarter of the twentieth century when my knowledge on American politics of the latter quarter of the twentieth century is on par with Joey Essex's.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, Hunter S Thompson. What a wackadoo, but he has such an interesting style and the stories to go along with it. This book bounces around, it's a collection of essays and some hit while others miss, but it'd been a while since I read him and reading some of his antics was both refreshing and liberating. I wish I was half as devil may care as Thompson, it must be liberating.

[Hamish Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

hunter is the burning spear. Thompson is the explosive device buried in our deepest fears. S stands for some type of narcotic trip you can never have, and never really grasp as you are a shitless asshole.

[Arthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

The “s” in hunter s Thompson stands for serve💅

[Keir Betts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still the goat

[Designated Hysteric · Rating 5 out of 5]

One Hand Clapping

I knew a Buddhist once, and I’ve hated myself ever since. The whole thing was a failure.
He was a priest of some kind, and he was also extremely rich. They called him a monk and he wore the saffron robes and I hated him because of his arrogance. He thought he knew everything.
One day I was trying to rent a large downtown property from him, and he mocked me. “You are dumb,” he said. “You are doomed if you stay in this business. The stupid are gobbled up quickly.”
“I understand,” I said. “I am stupid. I am doomed. But I think I know something you don’t.”
He laughed. “Nonsense,” he said. “You are a fool. You know nothing.”
I nodded respectfully and leaned closer to him, as if to whisper a secret. “I know the answer to the greatest riddle of all,” I said.
He chuckled. “And what is that?” he said. “And you’d better be Right, or I’ll kill you.”
“I know the sound of one hand clapping,” I said. “I have finally discovered the answer.”
Several other Buddhists in the room laughed out loud, at this point. I knew they wanted to humiliate me, and now they had me trapped—because there is no answer to that question. These saffron bastards have been teasing us with it forever. They are amused at our failure to grasp it.
Ho ho. I went into a drastic crouch and hung my left hand low, behind my knee. “Lean closer,” I said to him. “I want to answer your high and unanswerable question.”
As he leaned his bright bald head a little closer into my orbit, I suddenly leaped up and bashed him flat on the ear with the palm of my left hand. It was slightly cupped, so as to deliver maximum energy on impact. An isolated package of air is suddenly driven through the Eustachian tube and into the middle brain at quantum speed, causing pain, fear, and extreme insult to the tissue.
The monk staggered sideways and screamed, grasping his head in agony. Then he fell to the floor and cursed me. “You swine!” he croaked. “Why did you hit me and burst my eardrum?”
“Because that,” I said, “is the sound of one hand clapping. That is the answer to your question. I have the answer now, and you are deaf.”
“Indeed,” he said. “I am deaf, but I am smarter. I am wise in a different way.” He grinned vacantly and reached out to shake my hand.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “I am, after all, a doctor.”

-----

I lost control of the Cadillac about halfway down the slope. The road was slick with pine needles, and the eucalyptus trees were getting closer together. The girl laughed as I tried to aim the car through the darkness with huge tree trunks looming up in the headlights and the bright white moon on the ocean out in front of us. It was like driving on ice, going straight toward the abyss.
We shot past a darkened house and past a parked Jeep, then crashed into a waterfall high above the sea. I got out of the car and sat down on a rock, then lit up the marijuana pipe. “Well,” I said to Anita, “this is it. We must have taken a wrong turn.”
She laughed and sucked on some moss. Then she sat down across from me on a log. “You’re funny,” she said. “You’re very strange—and you don’t know why, do you?”
I shook my head softly and drank some gin.
“No,” I said. “I’m stupid.”
“It’s because you have the soul of a teenage girl in the body of an elderly dope fiend,” she whispered. “That is why you have problems.” She patted me on the knee. “Yes. That is why people giggle with fear every time you come into a room. That is why you rescued me from those dogs in Venice.”
I stared out to sea and said nothing for a while. But somehow I knew she was right. Yes sir, I said slowly to myself, I have the soul of a teenage girl in the body of an elderly dope fiend. No wonder they can’t understand me.
This is a hard dollar, on most days, and not many people can stand it.
Indeed. If the greatest mania of all is passion: and if I am a natural slave to passion: and if the balance between my brain and my soul and my body is as wild and delicate as the skin of a Ming vase—
Well, that explains a lot of things, doesn’t it? We need look no further. Yes sir, and people wonder why I seem to look at them strangely. Or why my personal etiquette often seems makeshift and contradictory, even clinically insane . . . Hell, I don’t miss those whispers, those soft groans of fear when I enter a civilized room. I know what they’re thinking, and I know exactly why. They are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that I am a teenage girl trapped in the body of a sixty-five-year-old career criminal who has already died sixteen times. Sixteen, all documented. I have been crushed and beaten and shocked and drowned and poisoned and stabbed and shot and smothered and set on fire by my own bombs. . . .
All these things have happened, and probably they will happen again. I have learned a few tricks along the way, a few random skills and simple avoidance techniques—but mainly it has been luck, I think, and a keen attention to karma, along with my natural girlish charm.

[Benjamin Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sheesh, just as Edward Abbey descended into a perishable hole of befuddlement and awkward sexual prose, HST appears to have gone the same way. Is it drugs? Certainly the Billy Goat sketch of Bill Hicks didn't sit well with me, nor does HST's fantasy about the 8yr old girl. Granted, he can say what he likes and the difference between a paedophile and pederast is as different as an author writing about blowing up a US governmental building and anyone blowing up a governmental building.

I much prefered reading this one when HST was cogent, his anecdotes and recollections about war and debauchery weren't as well supported by his imaginary escapades. And, I had to stop to ask myself what it was that was lacking: humour. In HST's best works, including Fear and Loathing there is a maniacal hunour which really resonates, I found those tales tremendously funny. But, sadly as the party stops and that which has gone so high comes down, perhaps the cracks had appeared in HST's life - quite sad really. The final case, in the book, of which he ascribes a lot of space defending himself of the trumped up drugs charge. Overlooks the groping of the female journalist. Whether it happened or not is irrelevant, that HST paid so much attention to it in his biographical writing suggests guilt.

On the plus side, having read this book back in the early 00's. I can relate much better to the anger and dismay at the state of censorship and propaganda in the USA. He see's it, vitriolic as he is and that has become prominent in how America is perceived and digested in the modern era.

[Archie Osmond · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s the structure of the book that made this a slow one to get through. It’s a 3.5 star.

It’s a collection of loads and loads of random stories, news clippings and letters, and you kind of forget what’s going on in each one after about 5 paragraphs.

That said, it’s incredibly prophetic, particularly reading it in the present day. Writing just after 9/11 (literally on the 12th), HST basically predicts the way that America and the West has gone in the last few years - must have been a seriously clever bloke.

I think the highlight is the (apparently fictional) story about SC Justice Clarence Thomas, as well as the ‘prank’ HST played on Jack Nicholson.

Not as good as the fiction I’ve read by him, but will be exploring more of the non-fiction stuff for sure.

[Eugene Galt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is close to being Hunter S. Thompson's swan song, but it is not his best work. Some of the writings are rallying calls for freedom that ring true even today. Others are rambling, self-indulgent, disturbing, or some combination thereof. If you are new to HST, I suggest you start with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas rather than this book.

[Thomas Barrett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Picked up at a hotel. I found his writing style irritating. Maybe I would have loved him if I was born in that era but it was so dated in 2018. It felt just as distant as the feeling I get reading Jane Austen or someone. 1 star.