Fear and Loathing Letters #01: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

The godfather of gonzo journalism offers up a fascinating chronicle of his early career via his correspondence with friends and famous figures alike.

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

"Seared...with wit, wonder and insight — great reporting and great writing about major issues of the time". — Atlanta Journal & Constitution

"Deliriously entertaining". — Time

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.

From 1955, when the author was a Louisville, Kentucky, teenager, to 1967, when the publication of Hell's Angels made him an international celebrity (and almost got him killed), "The Proud Highway" presents an unforgettable vista of the America of Eisenhower and Kennedy, as well as an authoritative introduction to the cultural revolution of the sixties. All of it is channeled through the razor-sharp perspective of the most outrageous raconteur/provocateur ever to assault a typewriter.

With a vicious eye for detail, a rude wit, and a brutal take on any and all pretenders, Thompson's missiles pierce pomposity and rattle the soul. Whether written to his mother, Virginia, or to such luminaries as Charles Kuralt, Philip Graham, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Carey McWilliams, Lyndon Johnson, and Joan Baez, the letters represent the evolution of an American original who once declared, "I damn well intend to keep on living the way I think I should". "The Proud Highway" proves he did — and cements his reputation as ajournalistic legend.

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".

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.