Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang

by Hunter S. Thompson

"California, Labor Day weekend...early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades & greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners & cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo & East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur...The Menace is loose again." Thus begins Hunter S. Thompson's vivid account of his experiences with California's most notorious motorcycle gang, the Hell's Angels.

In the mid-60s, Thompson spent almost two years living with the controversial Angels, cycling up & down the coast, reveling in the anarchic spirit of their clan, and, as befits their name, raising hell. His book successfully captures a singular moment in American history, when the biker lifestyle was 1st defined, & when such countercultural movements were electrifying & horrifying America. Thompson, the creator of Gonzo journalism, writes with his usual bravado, energy & brutal honesty, & with a nuanced & incisive eye; as The New Yorker pointed out, "For all its uninhibited & sardonic humor, Thompson's book is a thoughtful piece of work." As illuminating now as when originally published in '67, Hell's Angels is a gripping portrait, the best account we have of the truth behind an American legend.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Journalism, Memoir, Biography, True Crime, Crime

349 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 1966

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

[Kinga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hunter S. Thompson is the writer you want to read if you want to pull all those cool guys. They all love him, it seems, so just make a trip to some hipster café, open one if his books and wait to score.

I didn’t go for the obvious “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” but instead I read his debut, a non-fiction account of his time spent the Hell’s Angels, a motorcycle gang. It was also the book my book club was reading, so I didn’t have that much of a choice.

Even growing up in the 80s and 90s in Poland I had a good idea what a motorcycle gang was. The symbolism of it is omnipresent; it’s like a cultural picklock. The members of a motorcycle gang wear cut off dirt denim vest with their club colours, they drive big Harley-Davidsons, they have beards and they are scary. The message has always been clear – don’t step on their toes. Of course, these days they are most often used for creating a comic effect when a big dangerous bearded thug turns out to be really fond of puppies and wouldn’t hurt a fly.

It seems that demythologising of Hell’s Angels (and some other motorcycle gangs) was Thompson’s main goal in this book. On one hand he is trying to do away with the notion that they are the worst threat to the American society by putting their (still quite shocking) hooligan excesses in perspective. On the other hand he is also trying to deromanticise their image and make it clear that they didn’t have any agenda and that there was nothing glamorous about them. They were mostly a bunch of lowlifes with few prospects that found a sense identity and belonging in joining the gang.

The most fascinating part of the book was the role the media played in creating the Hell’s Angels. The media loved them. They were dangerous and flamboyant. A little Hell’s Angels riot in a small town in California was like a Christmas come early for any journalist. No wonder, the media created a story even when there was no story. The public wanted it - they liked to be scared. And the Hell’s Angels felt obliged to live up to their reputation.

Currently, America has a new boogeyman – the terrorists. They are just as exciting for the media as Hell’s Angels once were. They are just as unpredictable, unreasonable and they aim to destroy all that is good and true in America. Most of the public has been now driven into such a frenzy they would agree to just about anything to protect themselves from this horrifying threat. And I guess we need another Hunter S. Thompson to write a book to put things in perspective again.

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd just read Jay Dobyn's extremely exciting and fully-involved
No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels. Dobyn was an undercover cop whose total immersion in Angels' culture led to him substituting his real life for what was really a job. Because it was so involved, it took me a while to get into Hunter Thompson's cool, cynical, totally-detached own year-long involvement with the Angels, whose beer, drugs and addiction to speed he was happy to share, but the rest was left behind when he drove home to his wife and child.

Although 40 years separate these books there is an enjoyable synchronicity between them - some of Thompson's characters turn up in Dobyn's book, and the philosophy or politics of rejection by society's rejects remains the same.

Stunning writing. No padding, every word of every sentence adds to each developing story. Oh to write like that, like an angel....

Damn' good read.

[Jonathan Ashleigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt this was just too long. I don't want to read a 300 page magazine article that doesn't have a cohesive story.

[Brett C · Rating 4 out of 5]

"By the middle of summer 1965 I had become so involved in the outlaw scene that I was no longer sure whether I was doing research on the Hell's Angels or being slowly absorbed by them.", pg. 46

This strange and terrible saga tells the tale of the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club. Thompson was able to ride, hang out, party, and observe the Angels in their natural habitat of Northern California in 1965, where Oakland Chapter President Sonny Barger ruled and called shots for all Angels, pg. 42. The book reads like a mix of journalism, magazine article, and detailed report of lawlessness. Thompson does a great job of telling the history, social organization, the origin of their name, and other up-close-and-personal details of these outlaws compared to "Genghis Khan on an iron horse", pg. 3

Thompson also goes into a brief history of the motorcycle in America, the post-WWII scene, and how young men gravitated towards what became the motorcycle outlaw culture. Thompson explains all kinds of things unique to this way of life: the partying, the riding, details about their motorcycles, social and club hierarchy, and even women's roles (old ladies, mamas, strange broads).

I thoroughly enjoyed this the entire way. I think Hunter S. Thompson was a gifted writer because he had the ability to put voice into his writing. This book can be graphic and violent at times but it's anything but boring. I would recommend it if you've enjoyed other Hunter S. Thompson books. Thanks!

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trigger Warning: violence, rape, etc.

Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels purports to be an inside look at the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, but in the end it's little more than Thompson striking poses as an "insider" and issuing apologias for everything the Angels have done or are alleged to have done. For example, he frequently refers to them as rapists (and to their penchant for rape), but when it comes to specific incidents, he becomes a rape apologist, resorting to tactics ranging from the ridiculous to the outright misogynist to explain it away. Either it never really happened, or the girls/women involved "wanted it," or "it was wrong, but was it really-rape?"--that sort of thing. He refers often to their love of violence, but considers it either overblown or rather charming until he gets "stomped" himself. Incidentally, it isn't until he falls out of favor with the Angels (and is later stomped) that he manages to take a clearer look at what their lifestyle entails: actual violence with real consequences; poverty; drug abuse; ultimately, a dead-end existence. (He throws in some "decline of American culture" and "new, evil delinquency of America's youth" business for good measure. I thought he'd been using too much acid and casually observing too many gang-rapes to have any room to speak there, but I imagine Mr. Thompson disagreed.)

The casualness of his attitude towards the Hell's Angels' violence against women and outright misogyny is only surpassed by his casual embrace of their racism. The Angels enthusiastically display Nazi symbols (swastikas primarily), but when confronted by the press, they typically deny being "actual" Nazi sympathizers and claim they just want to freak people out--but you know, there were some good things about those Nazis, of course, the way they had each others' backs and all! Thompson lets all of this slide. (Maybe the rest of the press did, too.) Thompson does like to point to the three or four Angels affiliates who don't happen to be white, even though he writes clearly later in the book that one in particular will never get in because he's black. The Angels throw around racial slurs with abandon and disparage those scary, angry black people who keep rioting (the book is set in, and was originally published in, the early to mid 1960s), as do the police; Thompson lets it all pass. He goes out of his way to note that the Angels are capable of getting along with mostly-black motorcycle gangs, and uses that to excuse their obvious racism.

Ultimately, I don't feel like I learned much about the Hell's Angels from Hunter S. Thompson. I feel as though I learned about how Hunter S. Thompson felt special being allowed to hang out with the Angels for about a year, and how he used that time to try to explain away every bad thing anyone could ever say about America's most notorious motorcycle gang. He idolized them as "outlaws"--using an odd definition of "outlaw" that later also included Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, and Charlie Starkweather (some of these are not like the others. I mean REALLY). He waxed poetic about how "some people" found them heroic, but never said why anyone would find them worth looking up to. Maybe the book as a whole is the answer to that: nearly three hundred pages of a writer who liked to party and felt like he got to roll with the Cool Kids for a while.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hunter S. Thompson’s first book, Hell’s Angels is not nearly as “gonzo” or as good as his later writings and not nearly as fresh and fascinating as, say, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Hell’s Angels is a far more straightforward piece of journalism than HST’s later work but it is still an interesting read some 45 years on (certainly no small feat).

For one, it is cursorily interesting in how Hell’s Angels has quickly become outdated with references like, “Hell, eight dollars was a case of beer and gas back to Oakland.” Because now eight dollars will probably get you a 6-pack or enough gas to get out of the station.

But more importantly than that, Hell’s Angels, written about a 3-year period (‘64-‘66), describes a country’s utter fixation and fear about a perceived menace. And reading it in 2008, it all seems rather quaint and foolish. Motorcycle gangs? Really? The subtitle is “A Strange and Terrible Saga.” Reading it now, it just doesn’t seem very strange and terrible at all. And not much of a saga either.

And that makes me wonder about our current era’s perceived threats. Terrorists. Immigrants. Religious Fundamentalists. Health Care. Global Warming. Food Production. Disease. Radical Economists. Nefarious CEOs. Dwindling Natural Resources. Greedy and Compromised Politicians. Will they all seem quaint and insignificant in forty years?

I read books like The Shock Doctrine and Under the Banner of Heaven and Fiasco, and confidently throw them across the room in a violent rage knowing that I have found our age’s plague. How naïve and simple am I?

So what wicked monsters wait for us in the future to render our current perils dust bunnies in a dollhouse?

Hell’s Angels is important, like all of Thompson’s writing, for his uncanny ability to summarize the consequence of whatever it is he has set his special acuity upon, this case motorcycle gangs. In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas it was the American Dream and the 70s hippie movement. In Hell’s Angels, Thompson does not, nor did he ever, shy from bludgeoning his subjects with the cruel truth. HST had a special ability to place his topics in context, which, if you read Pierre Bayard, is all that matters.

[Callum's Column · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hells Angels were founded in California in the late 1940s and rose to infamy in the mid-1960s following several high-profile events of alleged mass violence and sexual assault. National media coverage terrified both the public and authorities. However, they were also a morbid spectacle. These unkempt, tattooed, and drunk men, often vulgar, violent, and impoverished, were another facet to the 1960s counter culture and anti-establishment movement. Their obnoxiously loud Harley Davidsons gave them their freedom, and their winged death head patches gave them their identity. They were misfits left behind in America's post-war posterity.

Hunter S. Thompson hung out with the Hells Angels for a year. He attended their notorious parties, befriended some members, and provided an anthropological study of them in this book. Contrary to sensationalist media reportage, Thompson argues that although lawless, they were largely harmless to the broader public. Hells Angel members were essentially losers that had failed to adapt to modern society. Although likely revelatory at the time of publishing, I found the book repetitive, with Thompson retelling several similar stories. Perhaps this is more of a reflection of the Hells Angels themselves: a vapid organisation masked in violence.

Unfortunately, this microcosm of American counterculture spread throughout the world in the coming decades. Outlaw motorcycle gangs are colloquially referred to as bikies in Australia. Hells Angels, Comancheros, Gypsy Jokers, etc, are pathetic organisations that deal in organised crime. They still get undue media attention. An assassination of a high-profile bikie in the city I live in received absurd media veneration a few years ago. These groups are ruining the most disadvantaged communities in the country by trafficking drugs like meth. Their petty and fatal turf wars also spill over into the public domain. Society would be better off without them.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread this a few months ago and found it to be just as wild a ride as I'd remembered. Early-era Thompson was such a great observer. I got it into my head that I would write a really boffo review to do the book justice- but those reviews are often the ones I end up not writing, or writing inadequately. In any case, maybe next year. 2024 is running on fumes.

[P.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well rounded survey of the gang in their forrays, their ramblings, their symbols, their coverage, and their blunders too.


Matching Soundtrack :
Peasantry Or 'Light! Inside of Light!' - GSY!BE

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read this for perhaps the fifth time. From this book up to about 1978 Hunter was at his peak and every book he wrote in that period is writing of the highest order. The guy was a major American prose stylist. Those of you who may scoff at this assertion will one day realize that I'm right. Hunter doesn't get nearly enough credit for being the very intelligent guy he was, and that intelligence is very visible in this book, written before the character of Hunter Thompson was developed enough to get in between the text and the reader. The guy simply knows his shit. His use of literary references alone is interesting, revealing a real understanding of just about everything that had come before, especially everything American. If somebody hasn't written a thesis comparing Hunter to Mark Twain yet, they should. If you scoff at that, go read "Life on the Mississippi" and then call me. Also, Hunter was a very good, very professional journalist. All his facts are straight, his figures are correct and his opinions and analysis are always labeled as such. This is a home run.

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

***SPOILERS ALERT***

Hell’s Angel’s is an account of the exaggerated myths, the terrible truths, the origins, motivations and the ethos of the motorcycle gang that terrorized American cities and small towns in the 1960s.

A substantial portion of the book is dedicated to disproving the myths about the Angel’s which were created by a paranoid American media. Thompson investigates negative news reports about the Angels and shows how most of them were biased and hollow. But he also harbors no illusions about the Angels. He writes about them with a mix of fascination and disgust. While he is mostly sympathetic to their cause (which involves riding across the country on motorcycles, getting stone drunk and occasionally raping women), he does admit that he would have pulled a gun if the Angel’s ever rode into the town where he lived. He also busts any romantic notions that hippies, anti-war activists (Ken Kesey and Allen Ginsberg) and student activists might have about the Angel’s by showing that despite their anti-social image, they were fiercely patriotic and also very racist. Thompson traces their origins to the Linkhorns who came to California as slave laborers. The Second World War left many of these Linkhorns with separation bonuses which they spent on motorcycles in a new rootless world. When it came to women, the Angels were not unlike conservative religious societies. They were men who would not shy away from rape, often indulging in gang rape of women who ditched a member or gave out information to the wrong people.

Even though the subject matter is very interesting, a book like this can end up as a failure in the hands of a lesser writer. While I found the first 100 pages to be a bit tedious with Thompson rebutting many negative articles about the Angels and their celebrity, there were some interesting bits like when he explains why California was the perfect home for the Angels. His description of the Angel’s machines (Harley 74’s) and how they came into being went a little over my head because I am not interested in bikes. Thompson writes clear sentences of medium length. His humor (and there is a lot of it) is caged in with occasional outbursts. His commentary on why the whole of American is fascinated with the Hell’s Angels is what truly makes this book a pleasure to read. For example:

“There is an important difference between the words 'losers' and 'outlaw.' One is passive and the other is active, and the main reason the Angels are such good copy is that they are acting out the day-dreams of millions of losers who don't wear any defiant insignia and who don't know how to be outlaws. The streets of every city are thronged with men who would pay all the money they could get their hands on to be transformed-even for a day-into hairy, hard-fisted brutes who walk over cops, extort free drinks from terrified bartenders and thunder out of town on big motorcycles after raping the banker's daughter. Even people who think the Angels should all be put to sleep find it easy to identify with them. They command a fascination, however reluctant, that borders on psychic masturbation.”

In the end, this book is about Hunter.S.Thompson as much as it is about the Hell’s Angels. You’ve got to admire this man. He was married with a kid when he collected material for this book. He got in his car and followed the Hell’s Angels across America, often sleeping in his car which had a large beer cooler. He became friends with some of the Angels and lived with them for almost a year, hanging out with them in bars, taking drugs and even riding with them. It was a life well lived.

[Sasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

You ever read a book where you can tell it was a magazine article padded out to book length? Here's one. Repetitive, circular and mostly boring, this is in no way worth reading.

I had a little fun with Thompson's light jabs at Kesey - and having just read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, I found the part where the two stories overlap very interesting - and he's sortof got a theme in there about society at the edge of society and masculinity and whatever (like all motorcycle riders, Thompson had some real questions about whether his dick was big enough) but if you can track down the magazine article, that ought to do it.

I also enjoyed the epilogue, during which Thompson finally gets the stomping you've been waiting for the whole time.

[R.K. Gold · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first hunter Thompson book I ever read and made me an instant fan of his work.

Talk about a man who wanted to see the world from every angle.

The scene I remember most was when he talked about the Angels getting hooked on acid. It was one thing they had in common with the hippies they hated, the difference being the angels didn’t necessarily take LSD because they loved its effects. While the merry pranksters were all about the hallucinations, the angels only took it because it was the cheapest drug they could find and any high was better than being sober.

[David Sarkies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drinking with the bikies
21 April 2012

I had been meaning to read this book for quite a while; ever since a friend of mine mentioned it to me years ago. Penguin then decided to release a number of books in a new mass market format, similar to their original releases back in the early days of the company. The books that they released in this new format were inexpensive and were collected from various authors throughout history. I actually appreciated this because they selected a lot of lesser known books that I probably would not have read if I had not seen them.

One of the books that I grabbed was Junky by William Burroughs, and the other was this one. The reason I grabbed them because not only were they short, but they also fell into the category of 'dodgy'. I say 'dodgy' because in many ways they are not the sort of books that the average middle class reader would pick up and read, but then again the average middle class reader is likely to pick up and read airport trash (though this is not strictly the case, particularly with some of the avid readers that I know at work).

The opening sentence of this book captivated me, and I cannot remember it strictly especially since I do not have a copy of the book on hand. Hold it, isn't that what the internet is for? The description of the Hell's Angels rider 'like Gengis Kahn on an iron horse, a monster steed with a firey anus' simply captivated me to a point that I could not put it down. I had read Thompson before (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and I must admit that I found that book really amusing, however this was the first time that I had decided to return to his writings to see what he was like with his other books. I must admit that his style of journalism, called Gonzo Journalism, is different and refreshing.

Thompson takes us on a tour through what he considers to be a 'misunderstood part of American culture'. This book was written during the Vietnam War so at this stage the bikie clubs had not had their ranks filled with returning vets. However, at one point he does describe the 'Linkhorns': the indentured labourers and poor people who had come over to the United States in hope of finding a better life but never actually doing so. As such they continue to move off to the west in an attempt to better their life, which never actually comes, and instead of finding a new land and wealth for themselves, they simply fall into the dark undercurrents of the society that is developing.

In many cases people suggest that the Hell's Angels of this book and the Hell's Angels of today are two different organisations. I cannot vouch for that statement as my interaction with bikie gangs have been limited at best. I have known people who have been connected, and I have spoken with them about things, but myself, I have never really been involved. It is interesting though because our government seemed to take a disliking to the bikie gangs above and beyond the normal distrust. There was a section of Adelaide where they used to congregated, but the bulldozers moved in, flattened the suburb, and put up new, and more expensive, townhouses in their place. They also enacted laws (since struck down by the High Court of Australia) banning the groups and any such associations. Thank God that the High Court intervened, because I can assure you that while today it is the Hell's Angels, tomorrow it is the Greens, the Christians, and the Liberal Party Supporters.

It is a bit of a shame that I cannot remember this book too well, but what Thompson tries to paint is that all they really are is a misunderstood subculture. Okay, at the end they go to town on him, but as it turns out it was because he never actually told them that he was going to write a book about them and that he was researching their lifestyle. Throughout the book we are reminded of how the police go out of their way to persecute and harass, so they will be cautious nonetheless. Thus when it comes to light that Thompson is writing about them no wonder they are pissed.

We do go on a journey with them, and meet the bikie girls and enjoy a weekend at a lake. In many cases there seems to just be an awful lot of alcohol, but the drugs do come into the scene. We meet Ken Kesey at the end of the book having one of his massive drug parties, and in a way I was surprised to encounter this side of Kesey. I remember reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in high school and was stunned to discover that the writings of this drug fiend is being promoted in our schools. Hey, I don't particularly care, and as one friend of mine said, if 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is the worst book that schools are forcing children to read then she would be happy.

This is a short, well written, and entertaining book. I cannot vouch for whether it is relevant today in that much has changed over the years. I cannot even say if it is relevant to Australia. While Thompson does try to open up a 'misunderstood' subculture in America, I still note that it is a violent subculture, and I must admit that I am a delicate person who really does not like to get into fights, or at least physical fights. However, I guess this is simply the nature of males, in that when angry they lash out in anger but two days later they will be back in the same pub drinking beer. However, I'm not entirely convinced of this description, as males are also more than capable of holding grudges, and I suspect that the higher up the food chain you go, the more likely they are to hold grudges (I know I do, even though I paint it over with the veneer of respect and trust, but that is an argument and discussion for another day).

[Still · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost gave this 5 stars but HST padded the final 100 pages with about 50 unnecessary pages full of statistics, fantasies, and a ridiculous chapter on a riot in a Sierra national park that never occurs .
The rest of the book is just about perfect.
You can see in this, his first book that Hunter S. Thompson emerged on the publishing scene a true flame breathing dragon of a journalist.
Highest Recommendation.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still the best book about bikers ever written - and completely unromanticized, too. Their lifestyle is shown in all its greasy and grimy glory. And Hunter took a bad stomping at the end of the book by some vicious Angels. Written over forty years ago and still rawer than a lot of shit out there!

[Kristina King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both Hunter S. Thompson and the Hell's Angels bring preconceived notions to mind:
Thompson was a crazy sonofabitch. He was a nutbag druggie who liked to blow things up.
The Hell's Angel's are crazy motherfuckers. Remember Altamont? They killed like 500 people while providing concert security for the Rolling Stones.

Both of these notions have some basis in reality. Thompson liked drugs and blowing things up. The Hell's Angels did provide security at Altamont, where one person was killed by an Angel (in self-defense).

It is very fitting that Thompson got close to the Angels in order to write a book, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (1969). This book is definitely in the vein of Gonzo journalism—Thompson spends nearly a year with the Angels, drinking, going on runs, and having close encounters with the lawmen.

Don't expect to read about some elaborate ritual where Thompson gets initiated into the gang. That doesn't happen. He just hangs around with them enough that they start trusting him (and he doesn't even ride a Harley, but a British bike!). He sees firsthand what runs are like, what parties are like, and what the members do when they aren't together. Turns out the Angels are much more tame than their reputation sells them.

Many are married with a mortgage, but some are unemployed couch-surfers. Neither is unique to the Angels—I'm sure you'll find both types in a Scrapbooking club.

But no one has quite the reputation of the Angels. So, where did this reputation come from?

Guess, c'mon...

Five seconds...












Ok, it was the press. Media is responsible for making the Angels simultaneously feared and revered. Thompson uses excerpts from articles and reports to show how this happened. You may have heard how Thompson got "stomped" out of the club—that's such a brief part of the story, it's in postscript.

Point being, don't read this book expecting to see how brutally Thompson was beat by the Angels. That is not what it is about. It's about a group of men finding common ground and forming a club. The club—and its members and their actions—get blown out of proportion by the media to become a symbol for all that is wrong with sex, drugs, and motorcycles.

Really, they aren't that bad. That's not to say they are good—they just aren't that bad.

I highly recommend reading it, especially if you haven't read anything by Thompson before. I also recommend reading it if you're looking to start a much-feared gang... everything comes down to reputation.

[Sean Owen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've never read Hunter S. Thompson before and after reading this I don't understand his appeal at all. He's a tourist. He wants to tell us how he hung out with a bunch of big, bad biker criminals and how they were cool with him. When he manages to stop talking about himself his writing is almost totally incoherent. He argues that the media created a hysteria around the Hell's Angels, but then goes on to tell us about terrible stuff he witnessed them doing. The absolute nadir of the book is when Thompson explains away the numerous rape charges against the hells angels as the result of women who really wanted it, but changed their mind afterward and even if it was really rape doesn't every woman deep down inside really wonder what it's like to be raped?

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gentlemen, start your engines.
An absolutely stunning debut for any writer.

Thompson writes with knife-like precision and an eye for detail that pegs him as a born journalist but an ingenuity and original style that puts him in a league of his own.

Sometimes he writes like a scientist, or like David Attenborough, describing a new rare species of gorillas that he has suddenly come upon in the jungle as in the following lines...

"Probably the most universal common denominator in identification of Hell's Angels is their generally filthy condition." (page 8)

They were the original 1%-ers before it took on a broader swathe of the population in modern terms to basically mean the 'underdog.' Their shaky relationship with the AMA (American Motorcycle Association) is also interesting to read about.

Another of Hunter's many strengths is his ability to stand inside the shoes of various parties involved in the story. Often considered a 'nuisance' to normal regular run-of-the-mill drivers on the American highway, Hunter paints a description of the Angels through their eyes, "The southbound lanes were crowded with taxpayers heading out for a Labor Day weekend that suddenly seemed tinged with horror as the Angel band swept past...this animal crowd on big wheels, going somewhere public, all noise and hair and bust-out raping instincts...the temptation for many a motorist was to swing hard left, with no warning, and crush these arrogant scorpions." (page 11)

HST deftly traces the outlaw motorcycle gang's swift rise to universal notoriety but through his gonzo-journalism method, in which he joins in the action as a somewhat 'neutral' bystander offering firsthand accounts of what went down, he is able to lift the 'deadly fictions' of the press from our eyes, chase away the mist, and show us the true angels, bare bones and all: "Weird as it seems, as this gange of costumed hoodlums converged on Monterey that morning they were on the verge of 'making it big,' as the showbiz people say, and they would owe most of their success to a curious rape mania that rides on the shoulder of American journalism like some jeering, masturbating raven." (page 13). As you can see Hunter has a very gentle tongue-in-cheek way of poking fun at the excesses and exaggerations of the press but he does it with real panache. At other times, he is more direct and at these times, he makes sure not mince his words: "If the 'Hells Angels Saga' proved any one thing, it was the awesome power of the New York press establishment." (page 34).

So why was everyone so interested in the Hells Angels to begin with? Weren't they just a bunch of undereducated drunken and disorderly hoods riding around on motorcycles? Well, once again Thompson skillfully analyzes our thirst and interest in their primitive ways with the precision of an expert dart-thrower: "The concept of the 'motorcycle outlaw' was as uniquely American as jazz. Nothing like them ever existed. In some ways they appeared to be a kind of half-breed anachronism, a human hangover from the era of the Wild West." It is also just, to put it simply, great original writing that engages with the reader effortlessly.

Thompson's prose borders on poetic at times in his description of the boys he is riding with
"To see a lone Angel screaming through traffic - defying all rules, limits and patterns - is to understand the motorcycle as an instrument of anarchy, a tool of defiance and even a weapon." (page 85)

Although Hunter got quite close to these outlaws, he is able to distance himself away from them at arm's length to avoid being overly subjective in his analysis or overly romantic about these guys being 'heros': "There is something pathetic about a bunch of men gathering every night in the same bar, taking themselves very seriously in their ratty uniforms, with nothing to look forward to but the chance of a fight or a round of head jobs from some drunken charwoman." (page 85)
In other parts of the book he offers us such a clear, level-headed and dispassionate overview of their way of life that if anyone reading this thinks of wanting to become an Angel, they would probably think twice after reading Hunter's assessment of them: "When the party swings right, with plenty of beer and broads, being an Angel is a pretty good way to go. But on some of those lonely afternoons when you're fighting a toothache and trying to scrape up a few dollars to pay a traffic fine and the landlord has changed the lock on your door until you pay the back rent...then it's no fun being an Angel." (page 247)

What sets the Angels apart from other motorcycle riders then?
"Later, after riding a few months, I understood that the difference between a Hell's Angel on a hog and a white-collar bike buff on a race-tuned Triumph is not all in the engine. The Angels push their luck to the limit. They take drastic risks with no thought at all. As individuals they have been busted, excluded and defeated in so many ways that they are not about to be polite or careful in the one area where they have an edge." (page 89) Once again, Hunter nails it right on the head.

Not only did I enjoy Hunter's highly idiosyncratic and often humorous descriptions of the Angels, but I also loved reading his incisive social commentary, in which he tries to look at the wider picture and context within which he tries to 'situate' the Angels, the background, and their raison d'etre (reason for being): "It may be that America is developing a whole new category of essentially social criminals...persons who threaten the police and the traditional social structure even when they are breaking no law...because they view The Law with contempt and the police with distrust, and this abiding resentment can explode without warning at the slightest provocation." (page 103)

Their habitual drug-taking is more well-known thanks to the press and Hunter comments on that here too: "The Angels deal freely on the black market, and if any pill really worked as a substitute for food they would use it in large quantities, for it would vastly simplify their lives." (page 165)

Despite being outlaws, Hunter talks about the certain unwritten codes that the Angels all adopt and are aware of: "Girls cook for them, waitresses give them 'credit' at greasy diners, and there are always the married men, whose wives rarely balk at feeding five or six of the brethren at any hour of the day or night. According to the code, there is no such thing as one Angel imposing on another. A hungry outlaw will always be fed by one of the others who has food..." (page 165)

Hunter's humour is another strong point of his writing and his descriptions of cops, public figures and politicians gave me a good chuckle as I was reading this: "We talked on the phone for about an hour one Thursday morning. I was so fascinated that I couldn't hang up. The mayor spoke in a very exotic way. It was obvious that he was a man who marched through life to the rhythms of some drum I would never hear." (page 215)

There are various other questions that the reader has in his/her mind about the Angels and Thompson appears to be able to tap into these queries, very intuitively, and answer each one in turn in a very satisfying manner to the reader. One of these questions is 'why are they often so violent?' or 'from where do they get the image of being so violent?' (which are actually two very different questions)
Thompson: "There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the kind of random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency." (page 248)

So how do non-sociologists, like Hunter, account for their existence in the first place?
"Far from being freaks, the Hell's Angels are a logical product of the culture that now claims to be shocked at their existence. The generation represented by the editors of Time has lived so long in a world full of Celluloid outlaws hustling toothpaste and hair oil that it is no longer capable of confronting the real thing." (page 251)

If you want to read a writer who, metaphorically, 'takes no prisoners', then read Hunter S. Thompson. He is about as good as it gets.

And as one Amazon reviewer put it - Thompson's best book is not Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas (although I enjoyed that book very much too) but it's this - Hell's Angels. His masterpiece.

[Ensiform · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book that cemented Thompson’s reputation as the premier journalist of the crazed, and deservedly so. Thompson rode and hung with the Angels for a couple of years, and he presents them, at the height of their notoriety, through his own cynical, paranoiac freak prism. So we see the Angels as bearded, drooling, vicious outlaws ready to rape or stomp anything and anyone who crosses their path, but we also see them as tired old goons, knowing full well that they’re losers, and just trying to hang on to the little they have that separates them from total ruin.

Another journalist, one less inclined toward exaggerated menace, might have told a more straightforward story. One with more facts, and more intent on capturing the human angle on the Angels. But then, that book, ironically, probably would have been a skewed and misleading picture, for the Angels wouldn’t have allowed it. Thompson’s wild ride includes a lot of scary stuff – the Angel who likes to pull out victims’ teeth with a rusty wrench is a particularly effective picture – and ends with violence. But for all his Gonzo madness, he actually deflates the Angel image more than he contributes to it. Twenty-five years later, though its subject may have waned, this book still stands out as effective and vivid journalism.

[read twice]

[Eric Byrd · Rating 3 out of 5]

“To see the Hell’s Angels as caretakers of the old ‘individualist’ tradition ‘that made this country great’ is only a painless way to get around seeing them for what they really are - not some romantic leftover, but the first wave of a future...The Angels are prototypes. Their lack of education has not only rendered them completely useless in a highly technical economy, but it has also given them the leisure to cultivate a powerful resentment, and to translate it into a destructive cult which the mass media insist on portraying as a sort of isolated oddity...”

“The Angels’ collective viewpoint has always been fascistic. They insist and seem to believe that the swastika fetish is no more than an anti-social joke, a guaranteed gimmick to bug the squares...if they wanted to be artful about bugging the squares they would drop the swastikas and decorate their bikes with the hammer and sickle. That would really raise hell on the highways...”

[Adam Helsel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can’t believe how boring this was.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit, I am amazed. I got this book on sale and I didn't know what to expect. I thought that it might be an interesting little side journey into a part of the human experience I know very little about. I never figured that a fifty-year-old book about the world's most famous biker gang could be this fascinating and fun. It holds up beautifully after all this time. This is the first book I've read by Mr. Gonzo Journalism and I'm certainly open to it not being the last. He really was a hell of a writer.

This is not so much a history of the Hells Angels as it is a snapshot of an era, of what they were in the mid-60s with a little bit of the back story filled in. It came across, to me, as a very fair and evenhanded assessment of outlaw bikers at that time.

I recommend this one highly.

I'd just like to add something. If I'd read this book twenty or thirty years ago, I would've been horrified, for a lot of reasons. The scenes of what went on at those Hells Angel parties were pretty awful but looked at through the lens of today it has a new level of horror. I'm not saying that I'm proud of the fact that thirty years ago I might not have noticed so keenly how horrifying it was that those bikers felt free to gang rape a woman while she was out of her head on drugs, but there it is. Of course, to be clear, I'm not saying I would've approved back then. I certainly would've been horrified but I probably wouldn't have had any clear idea of how to process it. Thompson describes it all as though he were watching a baseball game. It was a different time but I don't think that was to his credit.

So yeah, this is a terrific book but in places, you're going to need a strong stomach.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book, it feels like he couldn't decide on what type of book he wanted to write. At times it is a piece of journalism, trying to uncover the truth of the Hell's Angels from the myth created by the news media. We know they are prone to exaggerating/making up stuff, but it is really surprising just how much bullshit they got away with writing about the Angels. The book also seems to be a nature documentary too, describing angels as if they were animals.

Hunter S. Thompson spends a lot of his time on edge, ready to leg it at the slightest chance of danger, being with Hell's Angels means he was on edge the whole time, even winding up his windows when sleeping in his car so they couldn't get to him. Some of the stuff they did to their "Mates" when they had passed out was pure class, cuffing their arms and legs to radiators, then lighting a few boxes of matches and dropping it on their crotch to wake them up. Can't wait to give that a go at the next family gathering.

I'm a big fan of Hunter's books and this one doesn't disappoint.

[Collin Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second HST book after Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. One thing I admire is his complete dedication and immersion to Gonzo Journalism. Riding along with The Hell's Angels for a year and documenting the whole bizarre and harrowing journey along the way. No other journalist today would dare put themselves into the kind of situations that Hunter did. Despite my problems with the book itself, I can't deny the tremendous effort here. Can't imagine what people thought when this came out in 1966.

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

such a systemic racism and rape culture perpetuating piece of 'literature'. at one point the author says "women are terrified of rape and yet in the back of every womb there is a nerve that twitches with excitement at its mention" or something extremely similar but I refuse to pick up the book to check so. the author frequently (particularly in the beginning of the book) used disgusting figures of speech "they're not Arab whores" (in reference to their old ladies I reckon) (can't remember the others but Again, mnot pickin the book back up). Also at one point thompson says the angels need a potential member to do something crazy Such As beat up a cop or **rape a waitress in her work** before they will accept them and then the literal frking next page it's like Well The Angels Say They Dont Rape So. And its like oBVIOUSLY nOT THe TrUtH and rape is brought up cOnStANTly like run of the mill shit like oh okAY tHey DonT rApE tHo fuckin hell. Also the entire just racist white supremacy shit at this point and they like omg we only wear swastikas bc it freaks y'all outttt and then being aggressive to anyone who's not white bar like 5 ppl like wowoow and black ppl Cannot join angels as a rule and they constantly using slurs and tearing down civil rights protests to "keep them in line" like wow great and they tore down protests against vietnam war and bashed protesters like it's all a joke man honestly

Also constantly thompson states how crazy and wild the angels are and how they'd do anything, and then like 3 paragraphs later the preferred reading or whatever is literally suggesting the police give the angels an overly hard time and it's so unjust like come oN and the cops and politicians are meant to be the bad guys but they're Super Not like I don't much like them either ##badboi👅👅 but oh no they're so terrible if they're trying to stop a bunch of dickheads who's sole purpose in life is to ruin others' than really what is the problem.

I'm glad he gets bashed at the end and I wish he elaborated further bc I Relished it. Also there are a lot of spelling errors littered throughout the book.

[Piker7977 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book. For one, it gives an insider's account of a counterculture, soon-to-be criminal group right during the epoch of this transition. Another cause for praise is the writing of Thompson. This is not the hyperbolic writings of his Fear and Loathing works. This is fairly straight forward, funny, and mixed with facts, statistics, and headlines to provide an overall picture of the outlaw motorcycle culture embodied by the Hell's Angels.

Last, and most noteworthy, Hell's Angels is a candle shining a light on America at large. While vital to understanding the mid-1960s, Thompson's book still burns bright and illuminates much of America's contemporary dilemmas behind the grand myth of our way of life. People are forgotten and cast as outsiders within our vast republic. Most of the dispossessed accept their fate and mark time as "losers" until death comes a knocking. But, there are a few who have taken the messages in our entertainment and media to heart and will go swing chains and wield blades against an oppressive future from which there is no escape. This is the outlaw culture. While it may be a minority within the category of the "have-nots", it is American bred. Pure and simple; and dangerous.

[Guillermo Galvan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rape, lead pipe to the teeth, gang bangs, LSD, motorcycle outlaws roaming across California. Nobody is better qualified, or crazy enough, to live and ride with the Hell's Angels for two years. The result of Hunter's "strange and terrible saga" was his book Hell's Angels and a savage beating stopped just short of having his head caved in with a massive rock. Luckily, he was not brained.

The book reads like a massive magazine article, spattered with person experiences, and occasionally graced with socio-philosophical insights. Despite the drug induced mania, Hunter upheld his integrity as a reporter. He never resorted to sensationalizing his story and made it point to denounce government and news agencies that reported exaggerations to a fearful public. Even the most heinous acts of sex and violence are written with cool objectivity.

As an example of traditional journalism, it is a failure. Hunter became too immersed. The outlaw motorcycle culture was starting to consume him. His justifiable paranoia gnawed him into desperation. Yet, the book is a supreme illustration of Gonzo journalism--disregarding all boundaries except honesty (within reason).

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Everyone an outlaw, until it time to do outlaw shit."

I picked this up because THE NATION recommended that if I, a pasty suburban leftie liberal, wanted to understand the "forgotten man" Trump voter, I should read this. I find out near the the end, that the goddamn NATION magazine paid the tab on HST's drink account to dictate this into a handheld tape recorder. Shady.

But the suggestion is not "that" wrong. As with everything HST wrote, there is a near perfect, poetic epiphany right near the end of the article/book that just sparks with soul cleansing crystal magic poetry. In the case of the Angels, HST crafts it out of the sheer loserdom that defines the cyclists' whole reason for being.

"In terms of the Great Society the Hell's Angels and their ilk are losers - dropouts, failures and malcontents. They are rejects looking for a way to get even with a world in which they are only a problem. The Hell's Angels are not visionaries, but diehards, and if they are forerunners of the vanguard of anything it is not the "moral revolution" in vogue on college campuses, but a fast-growing legion of young unemployables whose trapped energy will inevitably find the same kind of destructive outlet that "outlaws" like the Hell's Angels have been finding for years. The difference between the student radicals and the Hell's Angels is that the students are rebelling against he past, while the Angels are fighting the future. Their only common ground is their disdain for the present, or the status quo." p. 256-257.

Lost by their own hobbying, lost by their own addictions, lost by their own purposeful sense of community and belonging. But still given a certain nodding respect by conservative society and it's wide belted police force. Because, the Angels, are, when it is said and done, still young white boys and probably could be rehabilitated.

HST does an amazing thing, much like Arendt, he unpacks the bluster to strip the myth down to the most banal reality of the outlaw. While he never coins the phrase, the HELL'S ANGELS can be seen as a study in the "banality of hooliganism." The long stretch where HST does a play by play of the party at Bear Lake illustrates just how absurd the whole game of cat and mouse becomes - where the most dangerous thing are the "squares" armed to the teeth and those teeth floating in a bile of pent up fearful rage. The begrudging respect the police afford the motorcycle revelers and the pure drunken inaction of the revelers themselves, puts a fine point on the weekend adventure.

But there are honestly disgusting and troubling aspects to the Angel's - their attitude toward women, sex, and rape is primal and tribal. But, I wonder, to what extent does their embrace of demeaning and owning women, beating them into submission, and forcibly raping them did not just give full articulation to the mores of the post-war American spirit?

Not to mention their reactionary racism. While they seem to have no issue with individual blacks, they hate "the blacks" writ large. They fear retaliation after kicking the shit out of a young black guy in their bar. The white paranoia was conservative and unironically embracing the "law and order" tactics that are used to corral and harass them, as well.

But the most embarrassing part of the book is when the Keasey/Ginsburg crowd adopts the Angels. I mean why wouldn't old Uncle Alan want to make it with some greasy smelling bears while quoting Whitman as he came? The Angels were made for his fiddling bits, the slumming would be delicious. He even wrote a four page nonsense poem about them - under the pretext of convincing them not to wail on his gentle anti-war protesting friends. Oh the wiles of the poet, his song weakening the brutal heart of the barbarian to spare the valley of the river nymphs!

Bleck.

HST's book is an artifact to a time when America was still outraged by the unkempt appearance of the Hell's Angels, before the "look" became ubiquitous. Now the sight of a bearded, shirtless, leather vested man's man roaring down the highway, spilling beer and flipping off the camera is used to sell watches to stock brokers, not to instill fear into the hearts of upstanding mom and dads.

And maybe that is what the Trump supporters are most angry about. They are no longer feared and their existence considered outlaw. They are "forgotten" because their idea of outlaw culture is no longer outlaw.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wild ride! I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I decided to read it because I love Hunter S. Thompson, whom I consider one of my favorite writers. But this is based solely on only reading ONE of his books, probably the most famous book of his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I decided I wanted to read more of his work and realized this was Hunter's very first book. So many things I liked about it, but on a personal level, I live in the Bay Area of Northern California. I was born in Oakland, and this book centers mainly around the Bay Area and our cities and freeways. The Angels were heavily centered around Oakland and I enjoyed reading Hunter describe so many familiar places. This book takes place in the late '60s and I could see the early hints of Hunter's later drug escapades that he would write about in Fear and Loathing. There are descriptions of many of the Hell's Angels parties where they drank a lot of beer and dropped acid, echoing Hunter's own later experiences with substances. It made me wonder if his time with the Angels' is part of what planted the seed for the heavy drug binging he would become famous for and lead to his Gonzo days! Hunter talks about to me a more true and realistic account of what the Hell's Angels were like compared to what the media at the time portrayed them as. I could tell that many of them were sorely misrepresented and many never did a lot of the horrible things they were accused of, especially rape, which Hunter goes at length to explain in relation to that horrible crime being associated with the gang. He spent over a year with them and the book gives a "you are there" with him perspective which is highly entertaining!