MJ Nicholls's Reviews > Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

Note: Written on Sep 03 2007, when I was much younger. I detach myself entirely from the review and its contents.

Here’s Yr. Autobiography. Mahalo. Res Ipsa Loquitur.

Is it just me, or is this gent just a wee bit too forceful with his opinions?

Before the sad loss of Hunter S. Thompson, human marihuana chimney and perpetual idol to each new batch of college students, the Colorado-based chronicler of injustice and, um—sports—left this rambling and shambling document, labelled erroneously by Penguin Books as an “autobiography.”

However, before we go just a jot further, it might help to explain the purpose of this mighty man on earth, an award-winning journalist, author of the Great American Classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and free-speaking powerhouse of political retribution delivered with a sly middle finger to the establishment (and everyone he deemed stupid enough to disagree with him). His purpose among us was as some kind of stoned harbinger of truth, someone who actively sought the life of an outlaw, existing on the parameters of a nation he viewed corrupt on the inside and exposing the rot festering inside the charade of civilisation. His persona was one of a troublemaking thrill-seeker and outspoken cult genius, writing drug-fuelled fiction which varied from readable to overrated while retaining full exclusivity over the phrase “gonzo journalist.”

Kingdom of Fear, subtitled vacantly Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century remains true to the ranting and hellbent persona Dr. Thompson perfected in his fiction. It is narrated in the same rude, crass and matter-of-fact manner prevalent in his other books. Being unschooled in his canon, it would be false of me to mention examples and then compare works, but I have glazed over Songs of the Doomed and been dazzled at the weight of both political insight and indeed personal disgust. His most famous work also inspired me to let my imagination run riot within the confines of both a prose approach as well as the events of a story themselves. I have him to thank for popping my surrealist cherry with that 2003 piece about the hedgehog in the car on the pretend milk motorway. I burned all four copies.

Part One

The book is divided into three parts, but there is no real structure imposed upon the manner Thompson chooses to span his entire existence. He opts instead for a similar rambling approach to his previous works, which for an autobiography spells only fear and loathing in this reader. When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Turn Pro provides the odd piece of genuine insight into the formative stages of Dr. Thompson, but one of the biggest flaws of the book is the glib tone with which he chooses to express himself. There are times when Thompson wishes to inform us of his development into an intellectual and free-thinking journalist with a noble and just cause on the planet, but the lack of focus makes the experience little more than a series of anecdotes, often arrogant moments of blatant self-aggrandising and an exercise in keeping the reader miles and miles out of his personal and emotion inner realm.

The opening nugget entitled The Witness introduces the continuous catalogue of his countless legal troubles, the most prominent case being a run-in with a sex worker determined to take advantage of him. The tone then alternates in this first part between fiery attacks on the Bush administration and an almost manic attempt to right old wrongs or clear up previous indiscretions. This makes for far less interesting or fulfilling reading than perhaps just a basic overview of his life, and since there is no structure, the novel begins to dart between a messy series of his old articles, selected news reports of his mischief-making and brief pieces where he howls his consternation for the fools in charge and the reader is reassured by his foul-mouthed honesty.

Part Two

At first, the proposition seems much more tantalising as Dr. Thompson moves onto his specialist subject with Politics Is The Act of Controlling Your Environment, the lengthiest section where he discusses his attempts to stand for mayor of Aspen in 1970. The episode creates a jarring portrait of someone who should under no circumstances stand for office, but who ends up looking like the finest substitute compared to the other stooges in the running. As ever with Thompson, America is depicted as a place in almost constant political chaos and flux, and despite the illusion of order and sanity, the nation is at the mercy of some kind of raging “whore beast” making peace impossible. This point is hammered home clear enough, and helps explain his own exaggerated lifestyle choices such as tinkering around with firearms, vast quantities of drugs and his night manager job at the strip club (mentioned one too many times for comfort).

Seize The Night and Speedism move onto the topic of hedonism. Thompson was unrepentant about his lifestyle choices until his death, including his excessive use of drugs and high-speed thrills. He is adamant that all the decisions he made were out of sheer lust for life, writing about the most outrageous episodes of his life in explicit detail, before he states that all those who thought he was as OTT as he might have been in his fiction were stupid people. The portrait he creates of himself in this book is not one of a sympathetic man, but instead an enigmatic bulls**ter from the highest echelons of bulls**t, determined to keep his wild-man mythology going like his idol Bob Dylan. It all seems an attempt just to keep the fires of his homebrewed bile and contempt for the government nice and warm, and without having to actually present any academic or reasoned opinions behind what he says.

Part Three

The final section continues in the same vein, with random vignettes and rambling narratives divided by handy little asterisks and one or two page-filling quotes (he includes a whole poem from Robinson Jeffers). Witness III is one of the more regrettable inclusions here, a lengthy news report of a court case Thompson won interspersed with self-conscious comments written on a ratty old typewriter. It is around this point my patience for the book began to break down and I had to force the remainder of the way through. By choosing to stitch sections from newspapers and so forth into his life story, and focusing largely on legal episodes instead of himself, he is unable to adopt enough sincerity or create a portrait of an appealing man to win me over. Some of the photographs and letters here look like nothing more than shameless page-filler.

This section also includes the famous incident with Jack Nicholson, who he was accused of “trying to kill” and his bizarre field trip to Cuba where for some reason Johnny Depp was invited to join in as he reported on the unstable political situation over there. The most famous episodes in his life, especially towards the end of it when he had become something of a celebrity writer, had to be included since shock and hyperbole had been Thompson’s bread and butter since the 1960s. I know—how very cynical of me.

Kingdom of Fear failed to engage me enough to recommend. I believe there is a reason for this. It should never have been written in the first place. Hunter S. Thompson was someone whose life should have been chronicled by besotted admirers and lesser writers than himself. He should have puffed out of his life a cult hero, leaving behind an outstanding body of unmistakable journalism and immortal novels, but instead this work feels like a self-satisfied and sloppy self-portrait written by a bloated and arrogant jerk with his halo just a touch crooked. The humour in the book is childish and tiresome, rarely clever, and the overall impression from the novel is that Hunter S. Thompson was an unlovable, contemptuous and ranting soothsayer of political injustice, and a hard-bitten solider in the blood-filled trench of life with a foul mouth and complete lack of self-restraint or responsibility.

Then again—perhaps that was the point.