Hunter S. Thompson: Recent Episodes
Paul Peinado
Hunter S. Thompson in a 1998 interview on the Charlie Rose show talking about his novel, "The Rum Diary."
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Hunter S. Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels* motorcycle club in California. The article appeared on May 17, 1965, and after that Thompson received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of the profits from his writings. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A reviewer for The New York Times praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits — emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
In a 1997 interview with Charlie Rose, Hunter S. Thompson speaks on his career in journalism and his love of letter writing in his book "The Proud Highway."