Outlaw Journalist The Life And Times Of Hunter S Thompson

"Gets it all in: the boozing and drugging…but also the intelligence, the loyalty, the inherent decency." —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Hunter S. Thompson detonated a two-ton bomb under the staid field of journalism with his magazine pieces and revelatory Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In Outlaw Journalist, the famous inventor of Gonzo journalism is portrayed as never before. Through in-depth interviews with Thompson’s associates, William McKeen gets behind the drinking and the drugs to show the man and the writer—one who was happy to be considered an outlaw and for whom the calling of journalism was life.

From the king of “Gonzo” journalism and bestselling author who brought you Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas comes another astonishing volume of letters by Hunter S. Thompson. Brazen, incisive, and outrageous as ever, this second volume of Thompson’s private correspondence is the highly anticipated follow-up to The Proud Highway. When that first book of letters appeared in 1997, Time pronounced it "deliriously entertaining"; Rolling Stone called it "brilliant beyond description"; and The New York Times celebrated its "wicked humor and bracing political conviction." Spanning the years between 1968 and 1976, these never-before-published letters show Thompson building his legend: running for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado; creating the seminal road book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; twisting political reporting to new heights for Rolling Stone; and making sense of it all in the landmark Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. To read Thompson's dispatches from these years—addressed to the author's friends, enemies, editors, and creditors, and such notables as Jimmy Carter, Tom Wolfe, and Kurt Vonnegut—is to read a raw, revolutionary eyewitness account of one of the most exciting and pivotal eras in American history.

Jay Cowan, who was caretaker on Thompson's ranch and a trusted friend, paints a sensitive portrait of a man who redefined participatory journalism, who captured the decadence of the era, and generally consumed more drugs and alcohol than any other living creature on the planet. A self-professed 'lazy hillbilly', Hunter Thompson would immerse himself in the researching of a story, then write it all in a multi-day frenzy of drugs and sleeplessness. In his role as America's 'rock star author', he was invited to the White House (where he claimed to have snorted coke with presidential aides) and rubbed elbows with celebrities. Featuring previously unpublished color photos, this book provides the most compelling and readable portrait to date of one of America's most extraordinary personalities.

Only E. Jean Carroll, called by The New York Times the female answer to Hunter Thompson could write a gonzo biography of the master. Carroll writes of the drug-fueled and sex-crazed time she spent living with Hunter S. Thompson. Includes dozens of interviews conducted by Carroll with his ex-wife, former lovers, long-suffering editors, drug dealers, politicians, childhood friends and hangers-on. What emerges is an intimate look at an American icon.

Here, for the first time, is the private and most intimate correspondence of one of America's most influential and incisive journalists--Hunter S. Thompson. In letters to a Who's Who of luminaries from Norman Mailer to Charles Kuralt, Tom Wolfe to Lyndon Johnson, William Styron to Joan Baez--not to mention his mother, the NRA, and a chain of newspaper editors--Thompson vividly catches the tenor of the times in 1960s America and channels it all through his own razor-sharp perspective. Passionate in their admiration, merciless in their scorn, and never anything less than fascinating, the dispatches of The Proud Highway offer an unprecedented and penetrating gaze into the evolution of the most outrageous raconteur/provocateur ever to assault a typewriter.

This compilation of selected personal interviews traces the trajectory of Thompson's prolific and much-publicized career. These engaging exchanges reveal his determination, self-indulgence, energy, outrageous wit, ire, and passions, as he discusses his life and work.

A biography of the famed gonzo journalist who put Fear and Loathing into America's political lexicon. Turbo-journalist E. Jean Carroll delivers the shocking truth about the man who was the inspiration for Uncle Duke in the Doonesbury comic strip--his wild forays into politics, shark-hunting, the Hell's Angels, guns, whiskey, and drugs. 8-page photo insert.