Early Reviews of Savage Journey

I somehow missed Sophia Stewart's very smart review of Savage Journey for Alta. She didn't go along for the whole ride, but she really got it. No surprise that she's the recipient of a 2021–22 National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellowship.

I also dug Ron Jacobs's more autobiographical piece in Counterpunch. He has been reflecting on this period for some time and with great insight and sympathy.

New Republic Article on Gonzo Journalism

This is probably my last Thompson article for a while. Smooth, balanced, pairs well with fowl. It traces the four factors that combined to produce Gonzo journalism. It's also my first piece for The New Republic. Thanks to Michael Tomasky for that opportunity.

Savage Journey Excerpt in Bookforum

I'm delighted that Bookforum ran an excerpt of Savage Journey. It has to do with Thompson's drug appetite, and especially its effect on his writing process. Throughout the book, I pay careful attention to Thompson's dealings with his editors. Aside from Ralph Steadman and possibly Oscar Acosta, they did as much as anyone to establish his reputation.

Savage Journey at City Lights

Thanks again to all who attended the City Lights launch party with David Talbot. Not long ago, I was wondering whether or not to do this project. A lunch at Cafe Zoetrope with David and Paul Yamazaki, the legendary City Lights buyer, helped me figure that out. Many thanks to them, and to Peter Maravelis, who hosted the event.

Last night we also discussed Warren Hinckle, and I wanted to add his face to the gallery of Hunter Thompson's super editors.

Hunter Thompson and Jim Silberman

I start the Thompson book with his 17-page letter to Jim Silberman at Random House in January 1970. Thompson confessed he had no idea how to finish his second book, which was already two years overdue. When that book finally appeared in 1972, they called it Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This week I learned that Silberman also edited Stewart Brand's The Last Whole Earth Catalog (1971), which won a National Book Award. Add this face to the gallery of Thompson's stellar editors.

Hunter Thompson, Media Critic

My first piece for The Nation ran today. It's about Hunter Thompson as media critic. This one is extra special for me, not only because The Nation ran Thompson's Hell's Angels article in 1965, but also because Carey McWilliams gave him that story. Many thanks to Katrina vanden Heuvel for the opportunity.

Bob Scheer on Hunter S. Thompson

Bob Scheer and I chatted about Hunter Thompson for his KCRW podcast. Happily, Bob brought his vast experience to bear on the topic. He and Thompson met at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which I argue was a turning point for HST. Bob was working for Ramparts at the time; two years later, his boss (Warren Hinkle) helped birth Gonzo journalism at Scanlan's Monthly. Always energizing to chat with Bob, gratifying that he liked the book so much, and I love the Mr. Fish illustration.

Hunter Thompson Chat With Magnus Toren

Magnus Toren, who runs the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, chatted with me about Hunter Thompson on his podcast. It was a great pleasure to visit with Magnus again--almost as good as our trip to Big Sur, which occurred right before the pandemic started in earnest.

Among other things, we talked about Thompson's time in Big Sur, which was brief but eventful. It was also very formative. At the time, Thompson thought of himself as a novelist-in-progress, and I argue that Henry Miller's model of authorship was very attractive to him.

The goal now is to schedule an event at the library. We'll see if we can pull that off in these fraught times.>

Lit Hub Article on Thompson and Gonzo

I wrote my first essay for Literary Hub on Gonzo journalism. I try to show how capsule histories miss something important about Thompson's signature style--specifically, the shaping power of sheer fortune. Gonzo journalism was many things--in the article, I offer six ways to characterize it--but it certainly wasn't the predictable outcome of a conscious project.

The positive feedback to this article on my Facebook page was gratifying. Timothy Ferris, who knew Thompson well from their days at Rolling Stone, had this to say: "Very nicely done. Avoids the pitfalls that have beset many other writers on this subject, and is also refreshingly original. The phrase 'both generative and degenerate' captures a lot. You can be proud of this piece." That meant a lot to me.

Joan Didion RIP

I've been thinking a lot about Joan Didion and her legacy. My misgivings about her portrait of California have been stacking up over the years, but there's no denying the achievement, and I count myself among her admirers.

In the course of writing about Hunter Thompson, I found myself writing about her, too. She reportedly didn't understand why Tom Wolfe included her work in The New Journalism (1973). "Certainly I have nothing in common with Hunter," she said. That's very true on one level, of course. Her work was cool, precise, controlled. His was fractious, hyperbolic, extravagant. But in both cases, the world revealed its meaning through their heightened perceptions.

Her journey from Goldwater girl to Reagan critic offered another point of comparison with Thompson. By the time she wrote "The Lion King" for The New York Review of Books in 1988, Thompson was no longer the scourge he was during the Nixon era. That transformation was her second act; the third was her grief work at the end of her career. She reinvented herself in a way that Thompson never did, but she never abandoned her signature style or sensibility.

There's more on all this in the Thompson book, maybe too much, but she's a great foil for him as well as a major figure.