Hunter S. Thompson - Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
Samuel Johnson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a novel by Hunter S. Thompson, illustrated by Ralph Steadman. The book is a roman à clef: a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction, and it's heavily rooted in autobiographical incidents. The story follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze, all the while ruminating on the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement.

The work is Thompson's most famous, and has been notable variably for its lurid descriptions of illegal drug use, its early retrospective on the culture of the 1960s, and its popularization of Thompson's highly-subjective blend of fact and fiction that has become known as gonzo journalism. The novel first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971, and was printed as a book in 1972.

Plot Summary

The novel lacks a clear narrative and frequently delves into the surreal, never quite distinguishing between what is real and what is only imagined by the characters. The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson), and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Oscar Zeta Acosta), as they arrive in 1970s Las Vegas to report on the Mint 400 motorcycle race. However, they soon abandon their work and begin experimenting with a variety of recreational drugs, such as LSD, ether, cocaine, alcohol, mescaline, and cannabis. This leads to a series of bizarre hallucinogenic trips, during which they destroy hotel rooms, wreck cars, and have visions of anthropomorphic desert animals, all the while ruminating on the decline of culture in a city of insanity.

You can buy the book on Amazon clicking the following link: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

Source: Wikipedia