“Buy the ticket, take the ride,” was a favorite slogan of Hunter S. Thompson, and it pretty much defined both his work and his life. Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone showcases the roller-coaster of a career at the magazine that was his literary home.
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 bête 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.
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"If there is one writer who can make politics interesting, it's Hunter Thompson. A good chunk of the pieces chosen for this anthology are from Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail, about the presidential race in 1972, and I thought it would be fairly dull subject matter. On the contrary, it was a nice history lesson and gave me a peek into the mad craziness of the 1968 Democratic Convention, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and that devious crook Nixon. It's made even more relevant today with the recent passing of George McGovern, who was the only anti-Vietnam War candidate running, and was beaten by a landslide. Reading this only makes me miss Dr. Thompson and goes to show that we no longer have any journalistic voices of reason in these doomed times."
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Celeste (4 out of 5 stars)