I sent this to a mailing list in response to Thompson's death, but eh, might as well post it here too.

Hunter's made me sad for some time, and for some reason I just can't warm to that style of writing since I moved out of adolescence, although my politics-junky girlfriend (i.e. Miss Clap) did love the Nixon book, which she wasn't expecting. Anyway, it's been clear for a while now that instead of living by his wits he was being just as self-destructive as before but being propped up by his handlers, one of whom, his assistant, he eventually married. He was very smart, and very talented, and it's very sad that he was so batshit insane and unable or unwilling to get treatment for it. It's sad that he continued to represent this particular dumbass lifestyle and his public face was one that attempted to legitimize drawing it out into middle and old age, but the reality was that he was only able to do it because he was independently wealthy and had successfully surrounded himself with yes-(wo)men. Between the accounts of his drunken, embarassing book signing fiasco last year and the time Jesse spent with him for a story, this was just not a human being I could like or respect, and shame, shame, shame on the people around him for not doing something about this. I keep seeing accounts presenting his fate as inevitable, but it simply wasn't.

I'm not articulating this very well, but maybe you get the point. This was preventable, and he could have matured into a great writer instead of simply becoming a self-parody whose main message, at least as the public received it, was the democratization of self-destruction, whereas, like most democratizations, it was really only within your grasp if you already had m-o-n-e-y.
posted by Mike B. at 3:59 PM 0 comments