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Journalist and novelist Hunter S. Thompson was found dead on Sunday night in his Aspen, Colo., home of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 67 years old.
Although Thompson is most widely regarded for his 1971 novel "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," his career as a writer was remarkable as much for the literary persona he created as it was for the actual books and articles he produced. A lifelong smoker, drinker and drug user, a noted gun-enthusiast and a creator of controversy wherever he went, Thompson's self-crafted persona helped give his writings a desperate, searing quality that perfectly captured the growing nihilism of America's post-'60s counterculture.
Thompson pioneered a style of writing known as "gonzo journalism," in which the writer's personality and perspective on events were seen as equally important to, if not more so than, an objective account of the events themselves. While other practitioners of the genre, including Tom Wolfe and P.J. O'Rourke, retained a "fly-on-the-wall" perspective in adopting this style, Thompson's writings consistently placed him at the center of the events he described.
Although he later described it as "a failed experiment in gonzo journalism," "Fear and Loathing" represents the apogee of the unique approach that Thompson brought to his work.
The novel's protagonists, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, spend their time in Las Vegas ingesting a prodigious quantity of Duke's weekend drug supply, giving Thompson's account of their journey through the city a surreal, hallucinatory quality that permeates much of his work.
Thompson was quick to recognize that the whirlwind lifestyle he led for most of his professional career stemmed mostly from his own personal curiosity and hunger for excitement and was not suited for all tastes.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone," he said, "but they've always worked for me."
Running parallel to the ever-present pandemonium of Thompson's life and work was his growing sense of the death of the American dream, which he saw as the main theme running through his writings. This idea forms a central component of "Fear and Loathing," as well as his Rolling Stone articles on the election campaigns of Richard Nixon and George McGovern, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72."
More recently, he had been a staunch critic of the Bush administration and the restrictions it has placed on civil liberties through the Patriot Act, which he called "a dagger in the heart, really, of even the concept of a democratic government that is free, equal and just."
In an interview with Salon.com in early 2003, Thompson reflected on the course that his life had taken during his 40-plus years as a writer.
"The regrets I have are so minor," Thompson said. "You know, would I leave my Keith Richards hat, with the silver skull on it, on the stool at the coffee shop at LaGuardia? I wouldn't do that again. But overall, no, I don't have any regrets."
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