Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson [Hardcover]
- Author by Thompson, Hunter S; Rolling Stone Magazine
- Editor by Wenner, Jann
Editorial Reviews
From Publisher
Jann S. Wenner, the outlaw journalist's friend and editor for nearly thirty-five years, has assembled articles that begin with Thompson's infamous run for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Party ticket in 1970 and end with his final piece on the Bush-Kerry showdown of 2004. In between is Thompson's remarkable coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign--a miracle of journalism under pressure--and plenty of attention paid to Richard Nixon, his bete noire; encounters with Muhammad Ali, Bill Clinton, and the Super Bowl; and a lengthy excerpt from his acknowledged masterpiece, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
Woven throughout is selected correspondence between Wenner and Thompson, most of it never before published. It traces the evolution of a personal and professional relationship that helped redefine modern American journalism, and also presents Thompson through a new prism as he pursued his lifelong obsession: The life and death of the American Dream.
Reviews
- From Publishers Weekly
- The editors at Rolling Stone had a term for the nut of truth that sprouted from Thompson's raving dispatches from the front lines of American degradation. They called it "the Wisdom," and this riotous new anthology contains plenty. From his own 1970 campaign for sheriff of Aspen, Col., through the sordid tangle of the Nixon years, until his suicide in 2005, Thompson (The Rum Diary) was America's greatest gonzo journalist, each article "a classic of irresponsible gibberish." Readers who prefer their narrators driving drunk and freaking out on mescaline will find much to enjoy here, but Thompson's private correspondence reveals the committed reporter who insisted on grammar and copyediting, the political analyst who reveled in the minutiae of campaign strategy, and the earnest advocate who didn't hesitate to throw his celebrity behind a worthy cause. Too many gonzo writers use the gimmicks of excess to mask their lack of content. Thompson was the opposite. The more dissolute his visions, the deeper his insights become. For all the bravado, a sad, deep kinship with freaks and losers, and America itself, pervades these pages. (Oct.) Copyright 2011 Reed Business Information.
Quote Reviews
- "Thompson is a genuinely unique figure in American journalism, a superb comic writer and a ferociously outspoken social and political critic." --Jonathan Yardley, "The Washington Post"
- "At his best he has the kind of trenchant, mordant wit of H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain." --"Houston Chronicle"
- "Mr. Thompson, the flamboyant apostle and avatar of gonzo journalism, still exerts a powerful hold on the American psyche. . . . He was first and foremost an original, vivid prose voice." --"The New York Times"
- "Hunter was the only twentieth-century equivalent of Mark Twain." --Tom Wolfe
- "Thompson should be recognized for contributing some of the clearest, most bracing and fearless analysis of the possibilities and failures of American democracy in the past century." --"Chicago Tribune"
- "Some of the finest political and social writing of our times." --"The Seattle Times"
