Hunter S. Thompson, Born to be a Writer

Hunter S. Thompson became well known for his dislike of Richard Nixon

Hunter S. Thompson was born July 18, 1937 and first rose to prominence with the publication of Hell’s Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of the lives and experiences of its members.

He was an American journalist and author, and the founder of the gonzo journalism movement. Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story using a first-person narrative. The word “gonzo” is believed to have been first used in 1970 to describe an article Thompson wrote about the Kentucky Derby. It is an energetic first-person participatory writing style for which few others had his flair.

Thompson, who was among the forefathers of the new journalism movement, said in the February 15, 1973, issue of Rolling Stone, “If I’d written the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people—including me—would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”

Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement.

Politically minded, Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His run for sheriff is chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became well known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented “that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character”. He covered Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.

Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, “the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist … one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him.”