Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Harper Perennial Modern Classics - Softcover

Thompson, Hunter S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007204493 ISBN 13: 9780007204496

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2005

Synopsis

`We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive ..."'Hunter S. Thompson is roaring down the desert highway to Las Vegas with his attorney, the Samoan, to find the dark side of the American Dream., Armed with a drug arsenal of stupendous proportions, the duo engage in a surreal succession of chemically enhanced confrontations with casino operators, police officers and assorted Middle Americans.This stylish reissue of Hunter S. Thompson's iconic masterpiece, a controversial bestseller when it appeared in 1971, features the brilliant Ralph Steadman illustrations of the original. It brings to a new generation the hallucinatory humour and nightmare terror of Hunter S., Thompson's musings on the collapse of the American Dream.

About this title

Review:

Heralded as the "best book on the dope decade" by the New York Times Book Review, Hunter S. Thompson's documented drug orgy through Las Vegas would no doubt leave Nancy Reagan blushing and D.A.R.E. (US anti-drugs organisation) founders rethinking their motto. Under the pseudonym of Raoul Duke, Thompson travels with his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in a souped-up convertible dubbed the "Great Red Shark." In its boot, they hide "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicoloured uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser [and] a pint of raw ether" which they manage to consume during their short tour.

On assignment from a sports magazine to cover "the fabulous Mint 400"--a free-for-all biker's race in the heart of the Nevada desert--the drug-a-delic duo stumbles through Vegas in hallucinatory hopes of finding the American dream (two truck-stop waitresses tell them it's nearby, but can't remember if it's on the right or the left). They of course never get the story, but they do commit the only sins in Vegas: "burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help." For Thompson to remember and pen his experiences with such clarity and wit is nothing short of a miracle; an impressive feat no matter how one feels about the subject matter. A first- rate sensibility twinger, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a pop-culture classic, an icon of an era past and a nugget of pure comedic genius. --Rebekah Warren

Review:

‘There are only two adjectives writers care about...”brilliant” and “outrageous”. Hunter Thompson has a freehold on both of them. “Fear and Loathing” is a scorching epochal sensation.’ Tom Wolfe

‘What goes on in these pages makes Lenny Bruce seem angelic...the whole book boils down to a mad, corrosive prose poetry that picks up where Norman Mailer’s “An American Dream” left off and explores what Tom Wolfe left out.’ New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0007204493
• ISBN 13: 9780007204496
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240