Fear and Loathing: "The Strange and Terrible Sage of Hunter S Thompson", is an unauthorized biography of the writing icon. Paul Perry is the editor of a story Hunter did for Running magazine in 1980. At the time Perry was the first person to get Hunter to produce real work in about five years. The book draws from public records and interviews with friends.
The book takes Hunter from childhood in the 1950's up until 1991, although it skews heavily on the pre-1973 side. A lot of the material was not new to me, mainly because five years later, Hunter started publishing collections of letters to his friends and colleagues (The Proud Highway, see earlier review). If nothing else, the later work shows that Perry was pretty much on the money. One aspect that did come out was his treatment of women. While anyone familiar with the Thompson story knows he was no shining knight, Perry does make several references to physical abuse which disconcerted me.
Another thing Perry brought up later in the book was Hunter's use of drugs and how they affected his work. Now Thompson was certainly productive while consuming large quantities of speed, grass, LSD, and mescaline earlier in his career. Perry asserts that Hunter's foray into cocaine in the mid-70's coincided with the least productive time in his life. Tough to say what is cause and effect. Certainly trying to keep up with his own "Gonzo" image was enough to wipe out any man. Drunken rants in front of college students was a way to earn a cash, but no way to achieve a satisfying life. The lesson kids, is choose speed over coke when the situation arises.
If the book had one fault, it seemed to make way too many references to stories in Thompson's "The Great Shark Hunt". I started to wonder if Perry wasn't getting a cut of future sales. But I haven't read Shark Hunt, and maybe that book is even more autobiographical than Thompson's other works.
Today Hunter writes an internet sports column for ESPN.