1937-2005
"I don't like to write. I don't care what the fuck happens after I write. Once I've gotten the story in my mind, the rest is pain."
Birthplace
Louisville, Kentucky, US
Education
High school (not allowed to graduate) punctuated by stays at Louisville Children's Centre for vandalism; Columbia University, New York (for two months). One friend commented: "Hunter liked to be in the action, not just read about it. Which made him poor student material."
Other jobs
1956-57, US Air Force; newspaper reporter on myriad publications; various menial jobs
Did you know?
In 1970 Thompson ran for the office of Sheriff in Pitkin, Colorado, campaigning on the "Freak Power" ticket. He lost by a handful of votes.
Critical verdict
Much copied, never equalled, some would say his reputation is founded purely on the classic first pair of books, Hell's Angels and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. But Thompson's righteous embrace of booze, drugs and general wild living, while entertaining, would mean nothing if he didn't deliver, and the collections of his magazine and newspaper articles - The Great Shark Hunt, Generation Of Swine and Songs Of The Doomed - prove that his pure, high talent for rolling words across a page was as sharp throughout the 80s and 90s as it was when he first exploded on to the literary scene. The invention of 'gonzo' journalism - a highly subjective style of reporting blending wild real-life adventure with sarcasm and colourful exaggeration - was Thompson's own, honed in his pieces for Rolling Stone magazine during the 60s and 70s. His account of the 1972 US presidential race, Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail, was described by The New York Times as "the best campaign book ever published". Hell's Angels was the literary equivalent of method acting: Thompson lived, partied and rode with the Californian bike gangs for a year, a relationship which ended when they gave him, in Thompson's phrase, "a vicious stomping".
Recommended works
Hell's Angels, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, The Great Shark Hunt, Generation Of Swine, The Proud Highway
Influences
Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, JP Donleavy, Jack Kerouac, William Faulkner
Now read on
Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey, JP Donleavy, PJ O'Rourke
Adaptations
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (dir Terry Gilliam, 1998)
Recommended biography
Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S Thompson by E Jean Carroll (Dutton); his own polemical memoir, Kingdom of Fear (Penguin)
Useful links and work online
Work online
· Chapter one of The Rum Diary (1998)
· Assorted articles, essays and journalism
Background
· Timeline
· 1997 interview for the Atlantic Monthly