Although not usually considered a full-fledged
member of the Beat Generation, Hunter S.
Thompson maintained an association with several
principle Beat figures. Thompson’s body of work
would seem at first to be at odds ideologically with
that of the Beats in that he did not embrace the
spirituality and communal living that were usually
associated with Beat writers, but he shares several
vital characteristics with them. Above all, Thompson and the Beats write with an uncompromising,
truth-seeking intensity that does not shy from
unauthorized accounts of American culture and
unconventional views of the individual’s place in
American society. Ultimately, Thompson differs
ideologically from some of the main currents of
thought in Beat writing and, in fact, became one
of their most outstanding critics. Nevertheless,
Thompson and such Beats as allen ginsberg,
neal cassady, and ken kesey always maintained
a respectful admiration of each other due to the
earnestness and integrity of their respective attempts to investigate, critique, and influence their
surrounding culture.
Thompson was probably born on July 18, 1937,
in Louisville, Kentucky. Most sources agree upon
1937 as his birth year, although several sources
claim it was 1939. True to character, Thompson himself never provided clarification on this
matter. From the start he was someone who took
unconventional routes and someone who had a
conflicted relationship with traditional values and
authority. In high school, Thompson was a gifted
athlete but was also prone to run-ins with the
local authorities. Several arrests and a 30-day jail
sentence for robbery in 1956 prevented Thompson from graduating, although he later received
his diploma through the air force, which he joined
a week after leaving high school. It was in the air
force that Thompson began his work in journalism.
While assigned to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida,
he became a staff writer and sports editor for the
base newspaper. Following an honorable discharge
due to general insubordination and his moonlighting activities on a local civilian paper, Thompson
briefly held a reporting job in Pennsylvania before
winding up in New York City where he first worked
as a low-level copy writer for Time magazine and
where he also took a few formal classes in journalism at Columbia University. But the Time job did
not last long either, and due to his continual unruly, defiant behavior, Thompson would continue
to migrate from job to job throughout the late
1950s and early 1960s (he was fired from one paper
for driving a writer’s car into the river, another for
destroying the office candy machine). During this
period, Thompson also fell under the influence of
the Beats and embarked on a cross-country journey of discovery inspired by jack kerouac’s on
tHe road.
Despite his notoriously difficult nature,
Thompson began to amass a prolific body of journalistic work and a reputation as a highly competent, if highly eccentric, reporter. Among other
publications, he wrote for the New York Herald
Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, and the National
Observer, for which he became the South American correspondent from 1961 to 1963. Returning
to the United States, Thompson settled in the
Bay area on the West Coast where he became acquainted with Beat writers Kesey and Ginsberg.
He began to write for the Nation after once again
being fired, this time from the Observer, for inflammatory remarks. All the while, Thompson was
carving a niche as a reporter of the burgeoning
counterculture movement and was asked to write
a piece for the Nation on the motorcycle gang
known as the Hell’s Angels. This assignment led
him to immerse himself in the culture of the Hell’s
Angels for almost a year and ultimately resulted in
the publication of his first book, Hell’s anGels:
a stranGe and terriBle saGa (1967). While
the book provided an intimate glimpse inside the
gang’s activities, it also examined the media’s role
in the creation of the gang’s notorious reputation
and featured Thompson’s unique, novelistic, and
subjective style of reportage that he eventually
coined “gonzo journalism.” In gonzo journalism,
the reporter’s involvement in the story becomes as
crucial to the story as the subject being reported.
During the research for his book, Thompson introduced the Angels to the San Francisco Beat world
of Kesey, Ginsberg, and Cassady. The association
between the Angels and the Beats was short-lived,
but Thompson makes his observations on their
ideological differences that were central to his conclusions in Hell’s Angels, and the book furthermore
cemented Thompson as one of the foremost cultural critics of the 1960s.
Thompson’s newfound journalistic celebrity
resulted in a Pageant magazine assignment to interview Republican presidential nominee Richard
Nixon in 1968 and to follow him on the campaign trail. He wound up at the Democratic National Convention that year in Chicago and both
witnessed and was victimized by the police brutality during the rioting. It was a pivotal moment
for Thompson. As he later remarked, “I went to
the Democratic Convention as a journalist and
returned as a raving beast.” Thompson became
increasingly wary of politics but also much more
critical of its reach: “We have to get into politics—if only in self-defense.” This stance actually
led Thompson to run for the office of sheriff in
his new home, Aspen, Colorado, in 1970. He did
not win, but he was one of the strongest voices in
Aspen’s famous ongoing “Freak Power” campaign
that hoped to ban all commercial exploitation of
the region, preserve its natural splendor, and establish a haven of antiauthoritarian civil rights for its
residents. Earlier that year, in June 1970, Thompson published “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent
and Depraved” for Scanlan’s Monthly. British illustrator Ralph Steadman worked with Thompson on
the piece. The result of Thompson’s quick editing
of his notes resulted in an accidental breakthrough
in journalistic writing that furthered Thompson’s
gonzo style.
Thompson worked for several publications
before finding a home at Rolling Stone, where he
worked from 1970 until 1984. His first piece in the
magazine was an account of the political struggle in
Aspen. His second article covered the murder of a
Hispanic Los Angeles Times reporter, Reuben Salazar, and the consequent volatile response throughout the Hispanic community. During his research
he befriended the activist attorney oscar zeta
acosta, and after accepting an offer from Sports
Illustrated to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race
in Las Vegas, Thompson invited Acosta along with
him. The resulting article, based on their experiences in Las Vegas, was rejected outright by Sports
Illustrated, but was printed in Rolling Stone in 1971.
The article was soon published in book form with
Steadman’s illustrations: fear and loatHinG in
las veGas: a savaGe journey to tHe Heart of
tHe american dream.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas catapulted
Thompson to the heights of literary fame, and,
aside from being one of the best-loved books of its
time, it remains one of the most trenchant examinations of late 20th-century American culture. In
December 1971 the editors at Rolling Stone decided
to finance Thompson as their correspondent for
the Nixon–McGovern campaign trail of 1972. The
resulting book, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973) is considered one of the most
controversial, subjective, and hilarious pieces of
political journalism to be ever written. Thompson
used his gonzo journalism in an effort to get 18-
year-olds, who had recently been given the right
to vote, to defy Nixon’s reelection. McGovern became friendly with Thompson despite the futility
of Thompson’s efforts, and McGovern’s campaign
chief, Frank Mankiewicz, called Thompson’s take
on the campaign “the most accurate and least factual account of the campaign.”
In addition to articles for Rolling Stone and
other magazines, Thompson went on to publish
eight more books (mostly anthologies of previously
published articles) that catalogued political corruption and the disillusionment of the times, but none
ever again achieved the astounding cultural resonance of the two Fear and Loathing books. His writing remained insightful and uncompromising—and
gonzo as ever—but failed to find the same kind of
mass audience as his masterpiece. In a 1979 preface
Thompson wrote that he had “already lived and
finished the life [he] had planned to live” and that
he may as well end it all. He may not have been
serious at the time, but 25 years later he certainly
was. On February 20, 2005, Thompson took his
own life with a handgun blast to the head. Uncompromising in his writing, he was equally uncompromising in how he lived and how he ended, his life.
Like the greatest of the Beat authors, Thompson
had the rare ability to give succinct voice to the
unarticulated thoughts and concerns of his own
generation and of those to follow him. He was able
to crystallize in writing the spirit of an age, to show
us a vision of ourselves that, while perhaps unappealing, is nonetheless honest. Finally, he showed
us how to tolerate, or even defiantly rejoice in, our
degenerate civilization, and he exposed lives of
willing complicity.
Bibliography
Carroll, E. Jean. Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of
Hunter S. Thompson. New York: Dutton, 1993.
McKeen, William. Hunter S. Thompson. Boston: Twayne,
1991.
Perry, Paul. Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible
Saga of Hunter S. Thompson. New York: Thunder’s
Mouth, 1992.
Thompson, Hunter S. The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955–1967 (The Fear
and Loathing Letter, Volume One). Edited by Douglas
Brinkley. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998.
Whitmer, Peter O. When the Going Gets Weird: The
Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson. New
York: Hyperion, 1993.
Luther Riedel