When Doctor Gonzo “Walked With The King”- A Hunter Thompson Saga    

BETTER THAN SEX, HUNTER S. THOMPSON, BALLANTINE BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1994

Know this. The late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, was something of a muse for me although our politics, in the final analysis, were light years apart.  In the end he never found a Democratic Party candidate the he even, if grudgingly, could not support. I have read everything of his that I could get my hands on. During many a troubled time when I got down on the seemingly hopeless struggle in the fight for socialism his savage humor aimed at the inanities of bourgeois politics and politicians carried me through. That said, the book under review Better Than Sex about the trials and tribulations of covering the ill-starred 1992 presidential campaign eventually ‘won’ by Bill Clinton is not one of his better efforts and even with his vast journalistic skills must have been a chore rather than something to really dig into.  I will tell you my take on the why of this matter.

Hunter Thompson started making a name for himself as a political journalist in his first efforts at trying to understand presidential police campaigns during the ill-fated Democratic campaign of George McGovern against one Richard M. Nixon in1972. His Fear and Loathing on Campaign Trail 1972 stands a classic of ‘alternative’ journalism on the issue. He stated then that a political junkie, and by any definition he was one, could only really stand in the vortex of one such campaign before burning out. Nevertheless he pressed his luck. Unfortunately, Thompson found himself in the place where Teddy White found himself after his seminal ‘straight’ reporting on the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign, The Making of President. White too, went on to write more such books and not to his benefit. In short, pigeon-holed.  Take that lesson for what it is worth.

The real problem with Better Than Sex is that Thompson had written it all before, and to better effect. The writing seems frantic and tired, very tired. It did not help that his cast of main characters- one incumbent President George H. W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and the genuine dingo bat Ross Perot- would make even a political junkie get him or herself to the nearest rehabilitation center. The book reflects that in many ways not the least is the extraordinary amount of filler (literally with ‘draft’ notes, letters, etc.) that clutters the book. If that does not convince you then a three star rating on a genuine five star journalistic hero of mine tells the tale. Still, there is more than enough savagely funny analysis and humor for a real Thompson junkie to get by with on a few lonely political nights. Enough said. Oh, no, not enough said- Hunter, I hope you are still searching for that elusive brown buffalo.