Review:The Joke’s Over
by Susan Tomaselli
The Joke’s Over: Memories of Hunter S. Thompson by Ralph Steadman
On the 20 February 2005, a gunshot rang out on a farm in Colorado that echoed around the world. Dr Hunter S Thompson had committed suicide. His final piece of writing: the word ‘counselor’ typed on an otherwise empty page. Thompson’s unique brand of invective-laced journalism, Gonzo (like Tom Wolfe’s New Journalism, but more renegade), discarded traditional reporting rules in favour of a subjective, free-wheeling narrative in which he was the star player. An acute chronicler of America, he was a countercultural icon (particularly at the height of the Watergate era).
The “cunning bastard checked out before he had to,” writes Ralph Steadman, “leaving behind a battlefield of unexploded land mines, unused ammunition, guns, powders, salves, several bottles of the cheapest whiskies a self-proclaimed connoisseur would ever want to be seen dead with, uppers, downers, loofahs, quaaludes, a treasure trove of hilarious prose … but he left it to others to clear up the glorious mess.”
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