Freak Kingdom : Hunter S. Thompson's Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism

**The story of Hunter S. Thompson's crusade against Richard Nixon and the threat of fascism in America--and the devastating price he paid for it**Hunter S. Thompson is often misremembered as a wise-cracking, drug-addled cartoon character. This book reclaims him for what he truly was: a fearless opponent of corruption and fascism, one who sacrificed his future well-being to fight against it, rewriting the rules of journalism and political satire in the process. This skillfully told and dramatic story shows how Thompson saw the danger of Richard Nixon early and embarked on a life-defining campaign to stop it. In his fevered effort to expose institutional injustice, Thompson pushed himself far beyond his natural limits, sustained by drugs, mania, and little else. For ten years, he cast aside his old ambitions, troubled his family, and likely hastened his own decline, along the way producing some of the best political writing in our history.This timely biography recalls a period of anger and derangement in American politics, and one writer with the guts to tell the truth. The story of Hunter S. Thompson's crusade against Richard Nixon and the threat of fascism in America--and the devastating price he paid for it Hunter S. Thompson is often misremembered as a wise-cracking, drug-addled cartoon character. This book reclaims him for what he truly was: a fearless opponent of corruption and fascism, one who sacrificed his future well-being to fight against it, rewriting the rules of journalism and political satire in the process. This skillfully told and dramatic story shows how Thompson saw through Richard Nixon's treacherous populism and embarked on a life-defining campaign to stop it. In his fevered effort to expose institutional injustice, Thompson pushed himself far beyond his natural limits, sustained by drugs, mania, and little else. For ten years, he cast aside his old ambitions, troubled his family, and likely hastened his own decline, along the way producing some of the best political writing in our history. This timely biography recalls a period of anger and derangement in American politics, and one writer with the guts to tell the truth. How the gonzo literary journalist became a crusader against Richard Nixon and the threat of fascism in America—and the devastating price his work exacted on his life, his health, and his career Hunter S. Thompson is best remembered today as a caricature: drug-addled, sharp-witted, and passionate; played with bowlegged aplomb by Johnny Depp; memorialized as a comic strip character. In all this entertainment, the true figure of Thompson has unfortunately been forgotten. He has much to teach us all now. In this perceptive, dramatic book, Tim Denevi finds the moment when Thompson became the figure we all knew. As the Kennedy assassination and the turmoil of the 60s paved the way for Richard Nixon, Thompson greeted him with two very powerful emotions: fear and loathing. In his fevered effort to take down what he saw as a rising dictator, Thompson made a kind of Faustian bargain, taking the drugs he needed to meet newspaper deadlines and pushing himself... Author's note -- 1963-1964: the valley of the moon -- 1965-1966: that awful evil heavy Pacific fog -- 1967-1968: a hairy animal called Nixon -- 1969-1970: freak kingdom in the Rockies -- 1971: some dreamers of the golden dream -- 1972-1974: he speaks for the werewolf -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index How the gonzo literary journalist became a crusader against Richard Nixon and the threat of fascism in America - and the devastating price his work exacted on his life, his health, and his career