Hunter S. Thompson’s Letters to His Enemies
The great gonzo journalist understood America’s fractured politics long before the rest of us did.
If letters made sounds when we opened them, sounds expressive of their contents—if, from the freshly unsealed envelope, there rose a lover’s sigh, or an alcoholic belch, or a rasping cough of officialdom—the letters of Hunter S. Thompson would have released, I think, a noise like nearby gunfire. Like the crackle of some endless small-arms engagement. Pop, pop, pop, deep into the night.
I’ve been diving lately into the Thompson correspondence, via Douglasand), because I’m looking for answers. Answers to what? How about: to the huge, throbbing interrogative that is America at the end of 2019. What is happening? Where’s it going? How do you live in it?
