"Gonzo": It MUST be read!

Attention Agent 17! This is for you! For lo, did we not, those many years ago, get fully fuelled and go scream at the moon while raising dust devils in the Red Shark? Did we not follow in the tire tracks of the late great Dr. Gonzo himself?

I had read both of the biographies of Hunter Stockton Thompson, Doctor of Gonzo Journalism, that appeared before his death, viz.
Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson, by E. Jean Carrol (Plume 1993), and
Peter Whitmer's When the Going Gets Weird: The Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson; A Very Unauthorized Biography, (Hyperion Press, 1993)

Both books are pretty good, as far as they go, but as the publication dates indicate, "as far as they go" is the problem. HST didn't die until 2005. One might argue that his life -- his artistic life at least -- was pretty well over by 1993 so the next 12 years don't matter. But without knowing the story of his decline and eventual suicide, how can you understand the man?

There's also the problem that before his death many people were afraid to speak candidly about HST and their relationships with him. Possibly they feared that he would rise out of his wheelchair and come after them with a .50 calibre weapon. But after his Hemingway-like demise, their lips came unsealed.

All...or almost all...is revealed in Gonzo: the Life of Hunter S. Thompson, an oral biography by Jann S. Wenner and Corey Seymour (Little, Brown & Co., 2007). The authors...compilers, really...worked (???) with HST at Rolling Stone.

Having been, if not out of this world at least on the other side of it, when the book appeared, I missed it. Now I am hugely indebted to a dear and self-described acolyte for giving a copy to me. You know who you are, and I thank you.

To quote from the dust jacket blurb, the book is "a remarkable portrait of a mercurial soul who was alternately affectionate and impossible. Gonzo is a vivid biography of a life write large, with no excuses."

HST would probably have cringed at that last cliché. In a lucid moment he could surely have written something cutting which would have been ten times as fitting. I can't do so. If you're an admirer of Gonzo journalism, the whole Gonzo style and its creator, read the book...if only to understand yourself the better. Otherwise, forget it. We don't need you.