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Rise and fall of a rebel journalist
Outlaw Journalist
The Life and Times
of Hunter S. Thompson
By William McKeen Little, Brown. 448 pp. $27.95
Reviewed by Desmond Ryan
Fondly recalling the time when he began the fragile negotiations for access to the inner circle of the Hells Angels, Hunter Thompson reported, "They were a bit off balance at first. But after 50 or 60 beers, we found a common ground." This is not quite what they teach in journalism school when it comes to cultivating sources, but it worked for Thompson and led to his breakthrough, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, a widely praised and incisive 1966 memoir of his year with Archangel Sonny Barger and the rest of the boys. The saga of Thompson himself, sympathetically and exhaustively recounted in William McKeen's new biography, is a rise-and-fall trajectory. The arc of Thompson's career is reflected in the funeral rites after his suicide at the age of 67, three years ago. By that time his best work was decades behind him and years of heavy alcohol and drug abuse were catching up with him. Financed by Thompson's friend and admirer Johnny Depp, the memorial gathering concluded with the writer's remains being rocketed skyward and drifting down to earth over the Colorado mountains. The new biography from McKeen joins what has become a timely mini-celebration of the large imprint Thompson left on journalism and his cheerful disruption of the hidebound conventions he faced in the '60s. It joins Gonzo, the oral biography by Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour, and Gonzo, the recently released documentary by director Alex Gibney, narrated by Depp. In his later years, Thompson could still muster a blistering salvo - witness his 1983 coverage of the infamous Pulitzer divorce trial in Palm Beach, Fla. - but this revival of interest should help restore the reputation he built in his heyday. It was one eroded by the years of decline and the long derision heaped on him in Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury strip. Thompson was part of the "new journalism" movement of the '60s that included Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese among many other talents. He disdained the term and went his own way, discarding any interest in objectivity and making himself the subject and his response to the business of getting the story the focus of his often chaotic coverage. It was an approach that offered a vividly different perspective and allowed full vent to his anger at the hypocrisy and corruption that was then, as now, in plentiful supply. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a stoner classic that sent Thompson in search of the American dream, has its many admirers and was turned into a shambles of a movie, starring - who else? - Depp. For my money, the sustained best of Thompson is to be found in the vitriolic dispatches for Rolling Stone that later became Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72. Neither the reporters nor the candidates knew what to make of the guy who took his seat on the bus in the morning clutching a six-pack. They found out when Thompson's brilliant tirade on Richard M. Nixon's reelection bid came out. I would trade all the windbag punditry and nonstop lying and manipulation of a presidential election for one of Thompson's nail-'em-to-the-wall zingers. What is there left to be said after this description of Democratic hopeful Ed Muskie: "Ed Muskie talked like a farmer with terminal cancer trying to borrow money on next year's crop." Hubert Humphrey, the Democrats' 1968 nominee, was "an electrified corpse." And what Thompson had to say about his nemesis Nixon was unprintable in the mainstream press. To this day, anyone who wishes to understand our politics could do a lot worse than start with Fear and Loathing. Thompson's way into journalism was both circuitous and happily unconventional. He got into trouble as a kid and the judge offered jail or the armed services. He enlisted in the Air Force, where he developed his lifelong contempt for authority and covered sports for his base newspaper. He found his voice when he and Wenner began a long and thorny relationship. The paper's youthful readership rejoiced in the new star of the counterculture. McKeen, a friend of Thompson's and a professor of journalism at the University of Florida, has interviewed diligently and deeply among the writer's wide circle. His portrait of the formative early life is as telling as his account of the later descent is depressing. It was a minor miracle that Thompson lived to the age of 67, given his staggering substance abuse - a crucial issue that McKeen is more inclined to merely report than to analyze. When he was on his game there was no one like Thompson. Frank Mankiewicz, chief strategist for the doomed 1972 campaign of George McGovern, put the search for the real truth pithily. Thompson, he said in praise, could be relied upon for "the most accurate and least factual account."
Desmond Ryan is a retired Inquirer movie and theater critic.
The Life and Times
of Hunter S. Thompson
By William McKeen Little, Brown. 448 pp. $27.95
Reviewed by Desmond Ryan
Fondly recalling the time when he began the fragile negotiations for access to the inner circle of the Hells Angels, Hunter Thompson reported, "They were a bit off balance at first. But after 50 or 60 beers, we found a common ground." This is not quite what they teach in journalism school when it comes to cultivating sources, but it worked for Thompson and led to his breakthrough, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, a widely praised and incisive 1966 memoir of his year with Archangel Sonny Barger and the rest of the boys. The saga of Thompson himself, sympathetically and exhaustively recounted in William McKeen's new biography, is a rise-and-fall trajectory. The arc of Thompson's career is reflected in the funeral rites after his suicide at the age of 67, three years ago. By that time his best work was decades behind him and years of heavy alcohol and drug abuse were catching up with him. Financed by Thompson's friend and admirer Johnny Depp, the memorial gathering concluded with the writer's remains being rocketed skyward and drifting down to earth over the Colorado mountains. The new biography from McKeen joins what has become a timely mini-celebration of the large imprint Thompson left on journalism and his cheerful disruption of the hidebound conventions he faced in the '60s. It joins Gonzo, the oral biography by Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour, and Gonzo, the recently released documentary by director Alex Gibney, narrated by Depp. In his later years, Thompson could still muster a blistering salvo - witness his 1983 coverage of the infamous Pulitzer divorce trial in Palm Beach, Fla. - but this revival of interest should help restore the reputation he built in his heyday. It was one eroded by the years of decline and the long derision heaped on him in Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury strip. Thompson was part of the "new journalism" movement of the '60s that included Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese among many other talents. He disdained the term and went his own way, discarding any interest in objectivity and making himself the subject and his response to the business of getting the story the focus of his often chaotic coverage. It was an approach that offered a vividly different perspective and allowed full vent to his anger at the hypocrisy and corruption that was then, as now, in plentiful supply. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a stoner classic that sent Thompson in search of the American dream, has its many admirers and was turned into a shambles of a movie, starring - who else? - Depp. For my money, the sustained best of Thompson is to be found in the vitriolic dispatches for Rolling Stone that later became Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72. Neither the reporters nor the candidates knew what to make of the guy who took his seat on the bus in the morning clutching a six-pack. They found out when Thompson's brilliant tirade on Richard M. Nixon's reelection bid came out. I would trade all the windbag punditry and nonstop lying and manipulation of a presidential election for one of Thompson's nail-'em-to-the-wall zingers. What is there left to be said after this description of Democratic hopeful Ed Muskie: "Ed Muskie talked like a farmer with terminal cancer trying to borrow money on next year's crop." Hubert Humphrey, the Democrats' 1968 nominee, was "an electrified corpse." And what Thompson had to say about his nemesis Nixon was unprintable in the mainstream press. To this day, anyone who wishes to understand our politics could do a lot worse than start with Fear and Loathing. Thompson's way into journalism was both circuitous and happily unconventional. He got into trouble as a kid and the judge offered jail or the armed services. He enlisted in the Air Force, where he developed his lifelong contempt for authority and covered sports for his base newspaper. He found his voice when he and Wenner began a long and thorny relationship. The paper's youthful readership rejoiced in the new star of the counterculture. McKeen, a friend of Thompson's and a professor of journalism at the University of Florida, has interviewed diligently and deeply among the writer's wide circle. His portrait of the formative early life is as telling as his account of the later descent is depressing. It was a minor miracle that Thompson lived to the age of 67, given his staggering substance abuse - a crucial issue that McKeen is more inclined to merely report than to analyze. When he was on his game there was no one like Thompson. Frank Mankiewicz, chief strategist for the doomed 1972 campaign of George McGovern, put the search for the real truth pithily. Thompson, he said in praise, could be relied upon for "the most accurate and least factual account."
Desmond Ryan is a retired Inquirer movie and theater critic.
