Publishers Weekly
11/29/2021
Richardson (No Simple Highway), a humanities professor at San Francisco State, traces the literary development of Hunter S. Thompson, particularly during his stint in San Francisco in the 1960s, in this insightful biography. Richardson sets out to “take Thompson seriously as a writer,” and makes a case that “there was nothing inevitable about... Thompson’s celebrity,” nor did his work come from any “shortcut, pharmaceutical or otherwise.” Thompson’s “gonzo” journalism, Richardson writes, was the result of his long apprenticeship as a writer, which began in his home state Kentucky, where he started contributing to a friend’s sports newsletter at age 11, and culminated in his work for Rolling Stone beginning in the late ‘60s. To Richardson, Thompson hit his stride in the early ’70s with the publications of “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (both of the Fear and Loathing books being originally serialized in Rolling Stone). Richardson successfully captures Thompson’s lasting impact, positing him as the intellectual face of Rolling Stone and a thinker who anticipated Donald Trump’s politics. Literature lovers will find much to consider, as will readers interested in an artist’s struggle to develop a voice. (Jan.)
S-USIH: Society for U.S. Intellectual History
"Artfully crafted and dutifully researched. . . . It is a solid bridge between the writings of Hunter S. Thompson and the persona that was created to embody the spirit of Gonzo journalism."
CHOICE
"Well documented and smoothly written, the book is a pleasure. . . . Highly recommended."
Washington Independent Review of Books
"Some call Thompson the founder of 'gonzo,' a subset of New Journalism that shed objectivity and thrust the writer to the center of the story. As Richardson explains, the truth is more complex."
Wall Street Journal
"Richardson has a superb grasp of 1960s Bay Area culture. . . . This valuable study suggests that San Francisco, where Thompson took an assignment to write about a motorcycle gang, would prove his greatest touchstone."
Alta: Journal of California
Richardson makes an unassailable case for Thompson as one of the great media critics of his time.”
Houston Press
"Richardson presents a thoughtful examination of Thompson’s best work, his impact on journalism, and the price that he paid for those years when he burned the candle at both ends and in the middle."
CounterPunch
Richardson’s decision to look at Thompson through a literary lens not only works, it truly succeeds in adding a new level of comprehension and context to Thompson’s writing.”
Kirkus Reviews
2021-10-16
A lively, loping study of Hunter S. Thompson as litterateur.
As the author of books about Carey McWilliams, the Grateful Dead, and Rampartsmagazine, Richardson is well situated to lead us on a journey through the life of gonzo journalist Thompson, who was both a maker of and, in a sense, victim of a myth. He became so well known as an “outlaw persona” that it became easy to forget that he was a serious writer, and eventually, he descended into drug and alcohol abuse so severe that he couldn’t maintain professional standards. Still, Richardson advances several themes that he explores at length. The first, particularly useful to students of journalism and literary history, is the work of editors in shaping Thompson’s work. It was an editor who suggested that Thompson write about the Hell’s Angels, another editor who encouraged the quest for the “death of the American Dream” that eventually resulted in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. From his now-canonical takedown of the Kentucky Derby (suggested by fellow writer James Salter) on, Thompson’s work was also helped by Ralph Steadman’s visceral illustrations, “an indispensable part of its success.” Perhaps most important, though not exactly news, is the thought that Thompson took new journalism a step further to the point of blending fact and fiction; after all, he called Las Vegasa “nonfiction novel.” Richardson does yeomanlike work in untangling the real from the fictional, sometimes to angels-on-pinheads levels, as when he reduces the pharmacopeia in the trunk of Thompson’s Vegas-bound convertible to “only marijuana, Dexedrine, and Benzedrine.” The narrative sometimes wobbles, introducing and dropping threads only to pick them up later. Still, Richardson makes numerous valuable points, including the argument that, given the steady decline of journalism in the internet era, “mainstream media outlets have faced much more critical problems than the effects of New Journalism, and American letters certainly would be poorer without its contributions.”
Of secondary importance in the literature of Thompson-iana, but a good choice for devotees.
