R.I.P H.S.T
Damn. This is not the kind of news I wanted to wake up to this morning.
Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America’s underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” has committed suicide.
Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff’s officials said. He was 67. Thompson’s wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time.
My take? Just more proof that the asshats are winning. In a neocon world, sometimes shooting yourself seems like the only sane thing to do.
February 21st, 2005 at 9:03 pm
Unless you have more information than I do, I would not attribute HST’s death to the political climate. He could always write about the politics — and bad times are always good times for a satarist/humorist/lampooner/clown/evil genius.
My guess — and I don’t know why I choose to quess, but I do — is that he found he couldn’t write as well as he used to anymore. My guess is that his death is the same reason and method as Hemingway’s.
I would suspect that HST’s style was probably particularly suseptible to the decline of early old age. And his decline is likely to have been exaserbated by his lifestyle. At his best HST had magnificent timing and a perfect pitch and a wonderful twistedness. What I had seen of his works in the last 15 years or so didn’t measure up to his masterpieces.
February 24th, 2005 at 7:59 am
It looks like you’re right, according to what his lawyer says.