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

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Praise for

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

Hunter was the only twentieth-century equivalent of Mark Twain.

Tom Wolfe

Mr. Thompson, the flamboyant apostle and avatar of gonzo journalism, still exerts a powerful hold on the American psyche.... He was first and foremost an original, vivid prose voice.

The New York Times

Some of the finest political and social writing of our times.

The Seattle Times

Thompson is a genuinely unique figure in American journalism, a superb comic writer and a ferociously outspoken social and political critic.

The Washington Post

At least on the page, Thompsons renegade spirit lives on.

The Economist

Thompson should be recognized for contributing some of the clearest, most bracing and fearless analysis of the possibilities and failures of American democracy in the past century.

Chicago Tribune

At his best he has the kind of trenchant, mordant wit of H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain.

Houston Chronicle

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First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition October 2012

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Designed by Joy OMeara

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Thompson, Hunter S.
Fear and loathing at Rolling stone : the essential writing of
Hunter S. Thompson / edited and with a foreword by Jann S. Wenner
and with an introduction by Paul Scanlon.
p. cm.
I. Wenner, Jann. II. Rolling stone (San Francisco, Calif.) III. Title.
PN4874.T444F43 2011
070.1'7dc23

2011032312

ISBN 978-1-4391-6595-9

ISBN 978-1-4391-6596-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4391-7023-6 (ebook)

October 1, 1970

April 29, 1971

September 2, 1971

November 25, 1971

January 6, 1972

February 3, 1972

March 2, 1972

March 16, 1972

April 13, 1972

The Campaign Trail: Bad News from Bleak House:
Total Failure in Milwaukee... with a Few Quick Thoughts on the Shocking Victory of Double-George...

April 27, 1972

May 11, 1972

June 8, 1972

The Campaign Trail: Fear and Loathing in California:
Traditional Politics with a Vengeance

July 6, 1972

July 20, 1972

The Campaign Trail: Fear & Loathing in Miami:
Old Bulls Meet the Butcher

August 17, 1972

The Campaign Trail: More Fear and Loathing in Miami:
Nixon Bites the Bomb

September 28, 1972

October 26, 1972

November 9, 1972

August 2, 1973

September 27, 1973

February 28, 1974

October 10, 1974

May 22, 1975

June 3, 1976

December 15, 1977

May 4 and May 18, 1978

July 21, 1983

May 30, 1991

January 23, 1992

September 17, 1992

January 27, 1994

June 16, 1994

December 15, 1994

August 24, 1995

August 8, 1996

September 18, 1997

March 19, 1998

May 13, 1999

November 11, 2004

The record shows that in 1970 we published Hunter S. Thompsons The Battle of Aspen; in 1971 he wrote about the stirrings of Mexican unrest in East Los Angeles, featuring a fiery lawyer named Oscar Zeta Acosta, who later that year emerged as Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

In 1972, we began nonstop coverage of the Nixon-McGovern presidential campaign. Hunter took over my life thenand for many years after that when he was reporting (long, nocturnal telephone calls and frequent all-night strategy sessions), and especially when he was writing.

After Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, everything else he wrote was a full-on siege. Setting up the assignment was easyHunter was pretty much welcome everywhere and had the skills and instincts to run a presidential campaign if he had wanted. But then came the travel arrangements: hotels, tickets, researchers, rental cars. Later in the process, finding a place for him to hunker down and writeThe Seal Rock Inn, Key West, Owl Farm, preferably isolated and with a good bar. Flying in IBM Selectric typewriters with the right typeface; booze and drugs (usually he had this part already done); arranging for a handler-assistant at his end. Back at Rolling Stone , I had to be available to read and edit copy as it came in eight-to-ten-page bursts via the Xerox telecopier (the Mojo Wire), a primitive fax using telephone lines that had a stylus that printed onto treated, smelly paper (at a rate of seven minutes per page). I had to talk to Hunter for hours, then track and organize the various scenes and sections. He would usually begin writing in the middle, then back up or skip around to write what he felt good about at the moment, reporting scenes that might fit somewhere later, or spinning out total fantasies (Insert ZZ or midnight screed) that would also find a placeparts that were flights of genius. Generally the lede was easy, describing the invariably dramatic weather wherever he was writing from. Then a flurry of headlines and chapter headings and the transitions he had to produce on demand to create the flow and logic, and always, sooner or later, the conclusion, which we always called the Wisdom.

He liked to work against a crisis, and if there wasnt a legitimate one, he made one. We never had a fight about the editing. I never tried to change or improve him, but since I had a pretty deep understanding of his style and his motives, I could tell where he was going and sit at his side and read the map to him. If I didnt personally supervise everything he wrote for Rolling Stone, he wouldnt finish. It was a bit like being a cornerman for Ali. Editing Hunter required stamina, but I was young, and this was once in a lifetime, and we were both clear on that.

We were deep into politics and shared the same ambition to have a voice in where the country was going (thus the National Affairs Desk). We became partners in this as well, as mad as it may have seemed at the timea rock-and-roll magazine and a man known for writing about motorcycle gangs, joining forces to change the country. We used to read aloud what he had just written, get to certain phrases or sentences, and just exclaim to each other, Hot fucking damn. It was scorching, original, and it was fun. He was my brother in arms.

Now those days are gone. I still feel deeply in debt to him, and I never seem to stop working for him. And so it goes. And here we are publishing yet another volume of his work.