Gonzo, not forgotten

Like his life, widow's book about Thompson leaves the reader wanting more

John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 27, 2007 at midnight

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One of my early stops on the journalism highway was at a mid-size paper in Middletown, N.Y., called the Times Herald-Record.

The paper also was a brief, early pit stop for Hunter S. Thompson, who in the years before finding fame and glory as the innovator of what became known as "gonzo" journalism practiced a more garden-variety form of daily journalism in the mid-Hudson Valley.

Thompson's tenure at the THR came to an abrupt end one day when he lost some of his hard-earned coinage and his composure to a balking vending machine and responded by attacking it with his bare feet. This led to an exit interview with the then-editor of the paper, who summed up Thompson's career to that point by saying words to the effect of: "Young man, your eccentricities outweigh your assets."

From there, it was assets away.

Oddly enough, that quote is about all that editor is remembered for, whereas Thompson went on to a storied career in which he pioneered a form of reportage that threw journalistic conventions out the window and, by turn, outraged, amused, thrilled and informed a growing legion of fans and readers, of whom I count myself an early member.

I thought back to that snack-room incident while reading The Gonzo Way, a slim, well-written tribute by Anita Thompson to her late husband.

Anita Thompson makes an important point early on that I hope gets burned into the consciousness of a new generation of fans of her husband's writing style: Before he smashed the mold, he learned his craft.

Too often, people get sidetracked in the booze- and drug-soaked nature of Thompson's lifestyle without realizing just how much work he put into mastering writing, going all the way back to his days in Middletown.

He read voraciously: the classics, newspapers, everything. He would copy long passages of Hemingway, just to get the cadence and feel for the writing. His classic book Hell's Angels works not just because of the fireworks of his prose but because of his careful study of an intricate subculture.

Anita Thompson also has a great description of living with Hunter, likening the situation to living "with a teenage girl trapped in the body of an elderly dope fiend." Such was his enthusiasm for life, she says, and his predilection for drugs.

One wishes this book were filled with more such insights, but sadly, it leaves readers wanting more. Unfortunately, too much of the book is devoted to collecting praise of Hunter from his wide circle of friends, people like former U.S. senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, P.J. O'Rourke, Tom Wolfe and the late Ed Bradley. They supply a few nice anecdotes, as when Bradley describes how Hunter, his neighbor in Woody Creek, gave him an unpublished manuscript as collateral on a loan.

But there's not as much of the author's own insights as one would hope for. By catching her husband's bright light in the reflections of others, we miss out on her intimate observations. She does, however, provide a nice inside account of how Hunter became involved in helping free Lisl Auman, who had been convicted of felony murder in the death of a Denver police officer.

One significant area not covered in this book: any attempt to write about or deal with Hunter's death by suicide in February 2005. This is an understandable omission, given how painful that ordeal must have been for her. Still, if The Gonzo Way is an attempt at describing Hunter's legacy, there's no avoiding where the "way" led, and why. If you buy the ticket, you have to see where the ride goes.

Anita Thompson does hint at some of this toward the close of her book, with her observation that writing, for her husband, was the ultimate act of freedom, and that freedom for him was more than an abstract concept. For Hunter, being free was a whole lot more important than being safe. In a nutshell, that's what gonzo was all about: being free to write about the world as he saw it. rather than playing it safe and hiding behind the "on the one hand . . . on the other hand" equivocations.

Hunter railed at hypocrisy, bad politics and, yes, even faulty vending machines, if they got in the way of his ability to express himself fully.

And that, I suspect, may be his legacy and the reason why younger writers will find inspiration in his work for generations to come.

In person

Anita Thompson will make two appearances to promote her book in Denver next week:

• Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., at Tattered Cover LoDo, 16th Street at Wynkoop. Information: 303-436-1070.

• Thursday, 6 p.m. at the Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm Place. Sponsored by the Colorado Society of Professional Journalists, the event begins with a reception, followed by Thompson's talk at 7 p.m., moderated by Rocky reporter Jeff Kass. Free, but reservations required: e-mail spjcolorado@yahoo.com.

Author background

• Anita Thompson began working as Hunter S. Thompson's assistant in 1999. In 2000, she moved in, and three years later, they were married. The union was short-lived: Thompson committed suicide at 5:42 p.m. Feb. 20, 2005.

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