KINGDOM OF FEAR

Hunter S. Thompson (Jul 1937-Feb 2005) was a fiercely political American writer of the 20th century. Starting out as a freelance reporter and going on to produce a number of novels, this book "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century" 2003 is an autobiography of Hunter's life and works, and an incredible insight into his early confrontations with the law and how this has influenced his life.

This book if you are not familiar with his early work can be hard to follow at points as Hunter's passion often sends him on wildly imaginative tangents, usually quite funny as well as poignant. As well as the writing style the reason this book is so memorable is Hunter's life! It takes you on segments of his first hand experiences through some of the most memorable moments of America's mid to late 20th Century.

The early to mid 60's saw Hunter travel across the States and South America while freelancing, a life of which you get a glimpse at through his book "The Rum Diary", eventually published in 2008. In 1965 Hunter was commissioned to write a book on the new phenomenon of the "Hells Angels", this as an early piece was shocking in it's content but lacked some of the creativity we see in later publications but which helped Hunter to realize there was a "freak" market out there.

By the 70's Hunter had moved to Aspen with his family. Feeling let down by his experiences with the law and armed with his patriotism, passion and the pen Hunter launched his "Thompson for Sheriff" campaign which along with the "Freak Power" movement of the era set out to exploit the system showing it's corruption and how it wasn't working. It was through this campaign Hunter became acquainted with and started to work for "Rolling Stone", a culture publication coming out of San Francisco born of the same "Freak Power" wave.

It was this amalgamation that gave birth to the writing style of "Gonzo Journalism", the most creative and imaginative style of reporting giving you a strongly visual and mostly factual account of situations. "Gonzo" is the style in which "Kingdom of Fear" is written so in order to fully appreciate these accounts it may be an idea to tackle his earlier books "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" in which Hunter really captures the atmosphere and tensions of his journeys both physical and psychological.

"Kingdom of Fear" is a first hand account of all of this and so much more. To hear the reflection on decades of American politics and culture from the horses mouth is priceless and adds an extra dimension to any of his work you may have read before.