Proud Highway - (Fear and Loathing Letters) by Hunter S Thompson (Paperback)

About the Book

Indisputably a literary milestone, the public revelation of the private and most intimate letters of Hunter S. Thompson lays bare--better than even the most in-depth biography could ever do--the development, growth, and genius of one of America's most influential journalists. "Deliriously entertaining".--"Time".

Book Synopsis

A "deliriously entertaining" (Time) collection of letters that takes us inside the twisted mind of Gonzo journalist and acclaimed political analyst Hunter S. Thompson

"Brilliantly bizarre . . . a celebration of the '60s."--USA Today

"Thompson has become the F. Scott Fitzgerald of our time."--The Washington Post

Here, for the first time, is the private and most intimate correspondence of one of America's most influential and incisive journalists: Hunter S. Thompson. In letters to a Who's Who of luminaries from Norman Mailer to Charles Kuralt, Tom Wolfe to Lyndon Johnson, William Styron to Joan Baez--not to mention his mother, the NRA, and a chain of newspaper editors--Thompson vividly catches the tenor of the times in 1960s America and channels it all through his own razor-sharp perspective.

Passionate in their admiration, merciless in their scorn, and never anything less than fascinating, the dispatches of The Proud Highway offer an unprecedented and penetrating gaze into the evolution of the most outrageous raconteur/provocateur ever to assault a typewriter.

Review Quotes

"Deliriously entertaining."--Time

"Brilliantly bizarre . . . a celebration of the '60s."--USA Today

"A great book by a great American . . . Thompson has become the F. Scott Fitzgerald of our time."--The Washington Post

"Wicked humor and bracing political conviction."--The New York Times

"Enormously humorous . . . tremendous fun . . . One of Thompson's most significant books."--The Dallas Morning News

"One of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, both for his vibrant prose style and his career-long autopsy on the death of the American dream."--San Francisco Examiner

"A careening, chaotic rollercoaster ride through time. Crackling electrical charged fused from the Fires of Hell. Direction. Purpose. Energy."--William S. Burroughs

About the Author

Hunter S. Thompson (July 18, 1937-February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author. He was known for his flamboyant writing style, most notably deployed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which blurred the distinctions between writer and subject, fiction and nonfiction. The best source on Thompson's writing style and personality is Thompson himself. His books include Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (1966), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1972), Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973); The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (1979); The Curse of Lono (1983); Generation of Swine, Gonzo Papers Vol. 2: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the 80's (1988); and Songs of the Doomed (1990).

William J. Kennedy, author, screenwriter and playwright, was born and raised in Albany, New York. Kennedy brought his native city to literary life in many of his works. The Albany cycle includes Legs, Billy Phelan's Greatest Game, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ironweed.

Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history at Rice University, the CNN Presidential Historian, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Audubon. The Chicago Tribune has dubbed him "America's new past master." His recent Cronkite won the Sperber Prize for Best Book in Journalism and was a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year. The Great Deluge won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He is a member of the Society of American Historians and the Council on Foreign Relations. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three children.