Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson

The editors at Rolling Stone had a term for the nut of truth that sprouted from Thompson's raving dispatches from the front lines of American degradation. They called it "the Wisdom," and this riotous new anthology contains plenty. From his own 1970 campaign for sheriff of Aspen, Col., through the sordid tangle of the Nixon years, until his suicide in 2005, Thompson (The Rum Diary) was America's greatest gonzo journalist, each article "a classic of irresponsible gibberish." Readers who prefer their narrators driving drunk and freaking out on mescaline will find much to enjoy here, but Thompson's private correspondence reveals the committed reporter who insisted on grammar and copyediting, the political analyst who reveled in the minutiae of campaign strategy, and the earnest advocate who didn't hesitate to throw his celebrity behind a worthy cause. Too many gonzo writers use the gimmicks of excess to mask their lack of content. Thompson was the opposite. The more dissolute his visions, the deeper his insights become. For all the bravado, a sad, deep kinship with freaks and losers, and America itself, pervades these pages. (Oct.)