Hunter S. Thompson (AKA Raul Duke, doctor of journalism) did not invent New Journalism. Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote and a host of others were exploring it in the early 1960s. Jack Kerouac was pointing the way in the 50s. But the subgenre known as gonzo journalism is Thompson’s, and 1971’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the preeminent work of gonzo journalism by its preeminent practitioner.
New Journalism can be subjective and uses the techniques of fiction to tell a factual story. Gonzo injects the writer squarely into the story and further blurs the boundaries of fiction and journalism. It’s hard to say on just which side of the fiction/non-fiction line this book falls.
The narrative tells of a drug-and-alcohol-fueled trip (or two) to Las Vegas by Raul Duke and his attorney. But don’t let the drugs fool you. The writing is disciplined and crafted. The persona of Duke owes a clear debt to On the Road’s Dean Moriarty—in real life Neal Cassady who figures prominently in Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. Ralph Steadman’s deranged illustrations are a perfect accompaniment to Thompson’s text.
The assignment
Originally published in two parts by Rolling Stone, the book ostensibly tells of Thompson’s (Duke’s) assignment to cover the Fabulous Mint 400 motorcycle race in Las Vegas. “You’re going to need plenty of legal advice before this is over,” his attorney warns him in Los Angeles. “And my first advice is that you should rent a very fast car with no top and get the hell out of L.A. for at least forty-eight hours.”
What follows is a fast, disjointed account of a high-speed run from L.A. to Vegas, filtered through a haze of grass, mescaline, LSD, cocaine, ether, “and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers . . . .” The Mint 400 figures only incidentally in the story, and in the middle of a paranoid flight from Las Vegas to avoid prosecution, Duke receives a second assignment to cover the National District Attorneys Association’s Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, also in Vegas. Somehow it made sense. “Back to Vegas and sign up for the Drugs and Narcotics conference; me and a thousand pigs. Why not? Move confidently into their midst.” The conference forms a blurry backdrop for the final round of adventures.
The facts behind the story are a little different. The two assignments were actually a month apart—the race was in March and the conference in April 1971. Thompson apparently attended these while working with Chicano activist and attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta on another story, and Fear and Loathing grew in the telling.
Fact and fiction
It’s fun to read Fear and Loathing as a hilarious tale of post-adolescent excess at the tail end of the counterculture. A kind of Animal House. But upon re-reading you begin to glimpse the structure beneath the apparent stream of consciousness. There are episodes in the tale that lie at either extreme of probability and that probably did or did not happen. But finding the exact line between fact and fiction is difficult. There probably is no firm dividing line. It’s all more or less true, whether it happened or not.
The subtitle of the book is A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, and that is what the book is about. If you can’t find the American Dream in Las Vegas, where can you find it? Might as well go back to Woody Creek to hole up with plenty of fresh drugs and firearms to lament the lost possibilities of the ’60s.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has been criticized as glorifying the recreational use of illegal drugs. But, hey—we’re all adults here, right? We know we should not be huffing ether while drinking tequila by the quart and gobbling hallucinogens by the handful. If you are a responsible adult, you can find this book in your local library or bookstore.