Hunter S. Thompson and the Origins of Gonzo Journalism

“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”

• Hunter S. Thompson in Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, 1966

Hunter (S. Thompson) was working on the Kentucky Derby piece for Scanlan’s. And he could not meet the deadline. He tried and he couldn’t do it. And he said to Warren Hinkle, the editor, “Look, all I’ve got are notes.” And Warren said, “Well, send the notes.” And Hunter said, “I can’t, it’s gibberish.” And Warren said, “Well, send them anyway.” And Hunter said, “I can’t do that. They’re just crazy.” And Warren said, “That’s OK, just send them.” And he did. Hunter was mortified.
      - Sandra Dawn Thompson Tarlo (ex-wife)

Finally, I just began to tear the pages out of my notebooks. . .  When I first sent one down with the copy boy, I thought the phone was going to ring any minute with some torrent of abuse from whoever was editing the thing in the New York office. I just sort of sat back and watched TV.

I was waiting for the shit to hit the fan. . . but almost immediately the copy boy was back and wanted more. . . So I just began to tear the fucking things out. But I was full of grief and shame. I thought this was the end. It was the worst hole I had ever gotten into.

They printed it word for word even with the pauses, thoughts and jagged stuff like that. . . and I slunk back to Colorado and said, oh fuck, when it comes out I’m going to take a tremendous beating from a lot of people.

But exactly the opposite happened. . . I started getting calls and letters. People are calling it a tremendous breakthrough in journalism, a stroke of genius. And I thought, “What. . .?”

      -Hunter S. Thompson, in an interview with Ron Rosenbaum in High Times, September 1977. (Both quotes from Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson by E. Jean Carroll)

. . .

There is something interesting about a skilled and practiced artist just letting go and not worrying about what others will think. Letting it flow. Of course, it doesn’t work unless first there has been practice and skill.

Gonzo journalism assumes that the personality of a piece is as important as the event or actual subject of the piece. Use of sarcasm, humour, exaggeration, and profanity is common.

Thompson said in the February 15, 1973, issue of Rolling Stone, "If I'd written the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people—including me—would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism."

Thompson based his style on William Faulkner's notion that "fiction is often the best fact".
- Gonzo Journalism, Wikipedia.

Hunter S. Thompson typed out works, he said, of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway,

Faulkner, Joseph Conrad and Kerouac in order to get the rhythm down. You can’t

really see it in Thompson’s writing — well maybe you can see influences — but the

study was nevertheless crucial to the end result. It is part of caring. As an artist,

a part of your job is to care. The world needs that. There is enough stuff produced

without care.

• Journal note

If you asked [the last man I worked for], he’d tell you that I’m “not very likeable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)

Nothing beats having good references.

Hunter S. Thompson, Job application letter to the Vancouver Sun
1st October 1958 — Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

Some people find it exceedingly difficult to get along with me and I have to choose my jobs very carefully. I have no patience with phonies, dolts, or obnoxious incompetents and I take some pride in the fact that these people invariably dislike me. I admire perfec­tion or any effort toward it and I would not work with anyone who disagreed with me on this score.
- Hunter S. Thompson, in a job application as a young man.

That came after, I think, a short stint as a writer at a bowling magazine. That belief in himself eventually allowed him to put some pretty fascinating if unorthodox work out into the world.