Proud Highway

Rating:
Summary: Tracking the rise of gonzo
Review: Thompson writes that he's "always thought that letters were a very poor medium to convey any sort of serious meaning." Readers may disagree. Aspiring writers will appreciate The Proud Highway for chronicling one young writer's unorthodox ascent. Fans will appreciate the letters for what they are: vintage Thompson.

Rating:
Summary: Oh dear....
Review: Whenever I sit down to read a new book, I always come to the crucial crossroad of decision....what will this one DO for me? When I sat down to this book, I thought..."Oh dear....I'm gonna be up all night...and then some". Go and buy it NOW!

Rating:
Summary: Literary to His Finger Tips
Review: William J. Kennedy writes that odd things happen when you intersect with Hunter Thompson. Kennedy's introduction describes him as a masterful prose sylist. Douglas Brinkley, the editor, notes that Hunter Thompson took over Kierkegaard's phrase 'fear and loathing'. Thompson, Brinkely reports, had a ritual of typing letters at night. Brinkley believes that Orwell was a supreme influence of Thompson's style.

The letters written during Thompson's service in the Air Force evidence a young person literary to his finger tips. The editor uses notes to orient the reader by saying, for instance, now he is reading F. Scott FitzGerald, or John Dos Passos. Like many young people suffering from maladjustment, he was also reading with great interest THE OUSIDER and THE FOUNTAINHEAD. Thompson worked as a copy boy at TIME. Henry Luce set up a free bar for the employees on Sunday evenings. Hunter details in one of the letters how he took some of Henry Luce's things.

After being fired by TIME for insubordination, Thompson went to work at the MIDDLETOWN DAILY RECORD. He lost that job when he abused the candy machine. He thought LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS was great and wrote a letter to William Styron. (Actually, by reading this collection I learned to take a more charitable view of the journalistic posturing and strutting engaged in by Ernest Hemingway as his way of overcoming the terrible resistance of the blank white page to literary production.)

Thompson moved to San Juan to write for a bowling newspaper. Photographs show Thompson the Outlaw of Big Sur and Joan Baez, his neighbor. It was 1961 and he was 33. Thompson had a piece on Big Sur accepted by ROGUE. When his piece was published he was evicted for spreading gossip in a smutty magazine. Thompson sold a short story to ROGUE.

In 1962 he was in Bogata, Colombia. He went on to Peru, Equador, Bolivia, and Brazil doing pieces for THE NATIONAL OBSERVER. Carey McWilliams of THE NATION had Hunter Thompson cover the Free Speech Movement. By 1966 Thompson had his book on the Hell's Angels ready for publication by Random House. In a letter to Tom Wolfe Thompson described Colorado as one of those squalid-shaped states.

The writing is very lively and energetic. The editor's presentation of Hunter Thompson is fair and sharp.