Hunter S. Thompson: Kingdom Of Fear

Reviewed by JOHN McCRYSTAL

Hunter Stockton Thompson lives!

Yes indeed, folks, the Doctor (self-styled), like the truth, is out there, although not necessarily on speaking terms or in the same neighbourhood. And in fact, we only have the Doc's word for it, and this book is the word. The book itself could just as easily have been put together by a dimly lit roomful of mescaline-crazed monkeys chained to word processors running Windows '95. Come to think of it, who's to say Thompson isn't rotting in a shallow grave somewhere, or mummified with his hands strapped on either side of the gas-tank of a Ducati 900, speeding along a prairie straight, his walnut-handled Magnum in its shoulder holster beating out a hollow parody of The Star-Spangled Banner on his ribcage in the wind.

But no! Hunter S. Thompson, creator of gonzo journalism (self-styled), lives! He lives fast and after a fashion, and in spite of government health warnings and everyone who ever wanted him beaten to death with a Hawaiian stonefish. He's an advertisement for how bad for you booze, cigarettes, sex, violence and mind-altering drugs can be - and how sweet that is.

Because while they're bad for you, they've been very, very good for him over the years. Back in the sixties he created gonzo journalism (self-styled) by spurning the notion of objective reporting, instead placing his own deranged subjectivity at the centre of the story, and in this case also in the centre of a circle of gang members swinging billy clubs.

He rode with the Hell's Angels and wrote about them, playing fast and loose with the facts and blowing things out of all proportion. His view of events was filtered through a haze of booze, cigarettes, sex, violence and mind-altering drugs - and how sweet it was. But we knew when we read him that we could trust him utterly.

Eleven other books followed: Hells Angels, most notably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a thoroughly despicable melange of fact and frazzled fancy which was the envy of every writer who ever lived, including Hemingway, Shakespeare and Hunter S. Thompson, who by all accounts (his own) took some convincing that he wrote it when he woke from his Benzedrine rapture.

On himself, Thompson writes: "I was a notorious bestselling author of weird and brutal books and also a widely feared newspaper columnist with many separate agendas ... I was also drunk, crazy, and heavily armed at all times. People trembled and cursed when I came into a public room and started screaming in German. It was embarrassing."

His cheeks are still blazing; his ears are still ringing with umlauts. Mahalo.

And now! That which you dreaded has come upon you! That which you most feared has come to pass! Another book (self-styled) from the Doc.

It's a patchy, rambling, incoherent mess of pottage. It's true and beautiful. It extols the virtues of booze, cigarettes, sex, violence and mind-altering drugs - and how sweet that is. It tells the story of how HST ran for Sheriff in Aspen and damn near got elected. It tells how he was brought into the Criminal Justice System on five charges of felony - mostly sexual assault and possession of drugs. The story of his persecution by a former porn film-maker is, as he writes on page 251, "a red thread in this book. I've been looking for one, and that is what it is."

But there are threads of many other colours, too. How he triumphed over said porn queen and the Criminal Justice System. How he road-tested a Ducati 900. How he went to Cuba. How he set off to celebrate the birthday of his good friend, Jack Nicholson, by taking along a million -watt searchlight, a huge parachute flare, a powerful amplifier, a tape of a pig being eaten alive by bears and a bleeding elk-heart - and how it all went unexpectedly awry.

Want to know how the Doctor reacted to September 11 - or, as he calls it, the Death of Fun? It's in here.

Kingdom of Fear is a powerful book, aching with truth and beauty. It's unforgettable, unsavoury and incomprehensible, and doomed to fall into the greasy paws of egomaniac reviewers determined to defame and misrepresent him by attempting to imitate his style and leaving readers with no real notion of what the book's about.

For many, Thompson is a sad advertisement of how deletorious booze, cigarettes, sex, violence and mind-altering drugs can be. For others, he is testimony of how sweet that is. For some he is the acme of American literature. For some he is the acne. This book will preach to the converted, even if it is unlikely to convert the preachy.

It is unrelentingly critical of contemporary America, particularly the Criminal Justice System and a certain porn queen (not George W. Bush, although it's unrelentingly critical of him too).

"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world," he writes, "a nation of bastards and bullies who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us."

Is this a song for our times, or what? Read it and weep. Feel the fear. Mahalo.

Allen Lane, $37.95

* John McCrystal is a Wellington freelance writer.