Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Other American Stories

by Hunter S. Thompson

A classic of American journalism from the aftermath of the '60s, Hunter S. Thompson's FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, the chronicle of his life on the road and on drugs, was originally published serially in Rolling Stone in 1971. Dubbing himself a "Gonzo journalist," Thompson devoted his entire career to defining that term as a reporter whose subjectivity is complete and unabashed--the reverse of the traditions of journalism--and who glories in his own savage, rule-breaking nuttiness. In FEAR AND LOATHING, Raoul Duke (Thompson's alter ego) and his lawyer drive to L.A. in a rented red Chevy convertible to cover a motorcycle race. They are actually, Duke tells us, in pursuit of the American Dream. But, from the memorable and oft-quoted opening sentence ("We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold") to the inventory of drugs hidden in the Chevy's trunk (grass, mescaline, blotter acid, cocaine, "and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers," plus a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls), Thompson's demented travelogue never lets up on the intensity of its criticism of a country where the American Dream is long-gone, the police-state mentality rules, and only drugs and laughter make sense. The whole mad adventure, illustrated with Ralph Steadman's grotesquely hilarious drawings, achieves an unexpected poignancy as an illustration of the book's epigraph, from Samuel Johnson: "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Editions of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Other American Stories

ISBN

9780679602316

Binding/Format

Hardcover

Publisher

Random House Inc

Date

1996

Price

$13.95

Very Good

Publisher Notes

First published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is Hunter S. Thompsons savagely comic account of what happened to this country in the 1960s. It is told through the writers account of an assignment he undertook with his attorney to visit Las Vegas and "check it out." The book stands as the final word on the highs and lows of that decade, one of the defining works of our time, and a stylistic and journalistic tour de force. As Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in The New York Times, it has "a kind of mad, corrosive prose poetry that picks up where Norman Mailers An American Dream left off and explores what Tom Wolfe left out." This twenty-fifth-anniversary Modern Library edition features Ralph Steadmans original drawings and three companion pieces selected by Dr. Thompson: "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," and "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved."The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought. For the Modern Librarys seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.