To his fans, Hunter S. Thompson’s writing contained “embellishments.” To his detractors, they were “fabrications.”
Thompson, the man for whom the word “gonzo” was a perfect fit, is the subject of the largely unflattering “Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson.” It is “an oral biography,” a series of vig nettes gathered from his friends, acquaintances and those he pulled into the vortex that was his life of drugs, alcohol and bizarre behaviors.
It’s not pretty. “Gonzo” paints Thompson as a wild man for whom turning the worlds of those around him upside down was the biggest drug hit of all. He was physically and psychologically abusive to his first wife; he borrowed money with no intention of paying it back; missed deadlines; womanized; threatened his friends with guns; and had a sense of humor that echoed junior-high pranks. Nevertheless, he was at times overwhelmingly charming. He was a man of great passions and people were drawn to the buzz around him.
His childhood friend Paul Semonin recalls, “Hunter was always pushing you, always testing you, seeing how far you’ll go before your loyalty breaks, or before you’ve had enough.”
He entertained, and abused, a dizzying array of celebrities, including Johnny Depp, Ralph Steadman, Ed Bradley, Don Johnson, Norman Mailer and Jack Nicholson. He drove his editors at Rolling Stone wild, missing deadlines, submitting copy that was little more than gibberish and disrupting the magazine’s offices with strange costumes and chaotic meetings.
His drug-fueled campaign for sheriff in Aspen — which he nearly won — remains one of the town’s epic events. When he first arrived in the mountain town, he made the Jerome Hotel the epicenter of his high jinx, and there were plenty of locals willing to join the party.
All that said, the man could write. His “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” published in 1971, set American journalism on a whole new course. It was like nothing seen before. In it, he wrote, “This is the main advantage of ether: it makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel … total loss of all basic motor skills: blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue — severance of all connection between the body and the brain.” As in “Hell’s Angels,” he didn’t just describe an event, he lived it.
His influence ranks among 20th-century literary icons, including Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and Mailer. His influence on a generation of young journalists became pervasive, bringing down writers at major newspapers who thought “embellishments” made a story better. The other downside: The clarity of his early writings and his excessive consumption of a litany of drugs and alcohol led wannabes to believe that they could capture his magic. They couldn’t.
About that “gonzo” label. Doug Brinkley, the literary executor of Thompson’s estate, explains: “Here’s how it happened: The legendary New Orleans R&B piano player James Booker recorded an instrumental song called ‘Gonzo’ in 1960. The term ‘gonzo’ was Cajun slang that had floated around the French Quarter jazz scene for decades and meant, roughly, ‘to play unhinged.’ ” Hunter loved the song and played it over and over when he covered the Richard Nixon presidential campaign in 1968, making him “the Gonzo man.” The man became the style, and he tried to live up to that public image.
But it couldn’t go on. His last great work was “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail,” written in 1972. Everything after that was largely reruns. His days of writing cutting-edge books and magazine pieces behind him, racked by pain from hip and back ailments and faced with old age, Thompson sat down in his kitchen at his Owl Creek compound on Feb. 20, 2005, put one of his beloved guns in his mouth and blew himself out of this life.
It should not have come as a surprise to those closest to him. He spent months saying goodbye, in his way. After his death, his widow, Anita, found a page from his notebook titled, “Football season is over.” It read, “No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won’t hurt.”
It was written four days before he died.
Dick Kreck is a former longtime staff writer and columnist at The Denver Post.
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Nonfiction
GONZO The Life of Hunter S. Thompson, by Jann S. Wenner and Corey Seymour, $28.99
