Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone by Hunter S Thompson

About a year ago a collection of the writings of Hunter Thompson for Rolling Stone, edited together by Jann Wenner was published. Considered the father of Gonzo journalism Thompson wrote with a style all of his own.

This collection of his writings centers mostly on his infamous Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972. Following the election from Muskie to McGovern, Nixon to the seeds of Watergate this was Thompson at the peak of his writing.

Reading Thompson is like looking through the looking glass. When he writes that as the campaign progresses reporters all self medicate themselves to be able to live with the constant array of bullshit that is part of a Presidential campaign one has to wonder if for once we are hearing the truth.

If one takes a real look back to forty years ago and pictures Thompson's writing through the prism of what reporting looked like at that time one gets a sense of what a revolutionary he was.

The candidates themselves, Nixon, McGovern, all seemed to have a sense that Thompson was different. Surely they thought he was crazy, but all in all one guesses that talking with this crude example of reportage was if nothing else a novelty.

I enjoyed this section of the book immensely as well as I did like his later writings on Watergate, Nixon, and the election of Jimmy Carter. His later writings on subjects such as a late infatuation with polo, and a crazy story about a supposed encounter with Judge Clarence Thomas ( pre Supreme Court nomination) in the Nevada desert when the judge's limo crashed into a hard of sheep and overturned and out came tumbling the judge with a couple of matching hookers. Thompson write this story at the time of Thomas confirmation hearings and said he realized in watching that this was the judge he had met years ago but I, in reading it, could not bring myself to think it anything close to a true story. If it was shame on us all for putting this man on the bench but that questioning, in the end, became the problem with later Thompson reporting. That is, where does the unfiltered truth end, and the exaggeration and Gonzo begin.

I read the book through but would not recommend it. What I would advise someone who wants to gain the full Hunter experience is to have them read just Fear and Loathing on the Campaign in 1972. This is Hunter at his best, when he was on that fine, almost indistinct line between genius and crazy. It is not a line one can stay balanced on for long.