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The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 By Hunter S. ThompsonDouglas Brinkley ( Ballantine Books )
Release Date: 1998-04-07
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Product Description
Here, for the first time, is the private and most intimate correspondence of one of America's most influential and incisive journalists--Hunter S. Thompson. In letters to a Who's Who of luminaries from Norman Mailer to Charles Kuralt, Tom Wolfe to Lyndon Johnson, William Styron to Joan Baez--not to mention his mother, the NRA, and a chain of newspaper editors--Thompson vividly catches the tenor of the times in 1960s America and channels it all through his own razor-sharp perspective. Passionate in their admiration, merciless in their scorn, and never anything less than fascinating, the dispatches of The Proud Highway offer an unprecedented and penetrating gaze into the evolution of the most outrageous raconteur/provocateur ever to assault a typewriter.
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Amazon.com Review
This first volume of the correspondence of Hunter S. Thompson begins with a high school essay and runs up through the publication of Thompson's breakout book, Hell's Angels. Thompson apparently never threw a letter away, so the reader has the treat of experiencing the full evolution of his pyrotechnic writing style, rant by rant. The letters--to girlfriends, to bill collectors, to placers of "Help Wanted" ads, to editors and publishers--are usually spiced with political commentary. The style and the political animus always seem to drive each other. For instance, an 11/22/63 letter to novelist and friend William J. Kennedy about the day's cataclysm is apparently the birthplace of the signal phrase "fear and loathing." (Thompson summed up the Kennedy assassination thus: "The savage nuts have shattered the great myth of American decency.") And the willingness to write strangers is stunning: this collection includes Thompson's letter to LBJ seeking appointment to the governorship of American Samoa. You might have thought Garry Trudeau was exaggerating in his Doonesbury characterization of the Thompson-based character Duke. He was not.
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 Why Hunter S Thompson has no peer ( debrafrenchbloom )
I have every book that Hunter S Thompson has ever written and if asked which was my favorite I would have to say "The Proud Highway" because it's the most private and most intimate correspondence of one of America's most influential and incisive journalists/writers - In letters to luminaries from Norman Mailer, Charles Kuralt, Tom Wolfe, Lyndon B Johnson, William Styron, his mother, the NRA and a host of newspaper editors, HST vividly catches the tenor/the feel of the times in the 1960's and channels it all through his own razor sharp perspective. His letters are passionate in their admiration and merciless in their scorn and never anything less than fascinating. It is never far from reach and I
can and do turn to any page at any time and
"The Proud Highway" NEVER fails to be at once thought provoking, entertaining, amusing and inspiring.
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The first stop...
This book is the first stop on my discovery of Hunter S. Thompson. While being a fan of many of those he had inspired and befriended throughout his years, I randomly picked this as a starting point, and I'm glad I did. While a good chunk of his bibliography is already on order, I believe this glimpse into the man of a cocky and [mostly] broke individual from his childhood up until just after his first real break at the money provides a foundation upon which the rest of his catalog can be interpreted with a little more detail and insight then just going in it blind.
It is a giant volume to read no doubt, clocking in at about 660 pages worth of letters, and even more to come. Invaluable to anyone that is intrigued and a fan of HST, and ripe to be torn by those that feel the fear and the wrath of his contempt.
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"debt letter" ( muslim1118 )
i loved this book. i'm pretty new to HST's books having 1st been introduced to his writing thru a friend who gave me a copy of Fear and loathing in las vegas. i didn't know he'd written other works but found that vegas book really funny. i bought a copy of it yrs later. the proud highway is a really interesting look into hunter's life on a daily basis. the "debt letter" on page 114 is hysterical! a great piece of writing. i've framed a copy of it and hung it above my pc. i love reading it.
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 There's genius and prophecy in this book, it just takes a while to find.
This book, more than anything, collapses under its own weight. I genuinely enjoyed the read, but in retrospect there were too many times when I skipped to the end to see how much longer the book would go. With exhaustive editing it would be a formidable volume, but certain personal and business letters do no benefit to the collection as a whole.
It almost functions as an autobiography... almost. I have a much better understanding of the late Mr. Thompson now, and admire his unhinged style of correspondence, but could have gotten the same point from less letters covering the same period of time. Like any good punk rock band, the shorter the song the better.
The highest points are his moments of prophecy, which I will not ruin for those who plan to read this book. Hunter's ability to identify patterns and apply them to the political arena is astounding, and his observations on such are the best parts of the book.
This is a good read for a patient reader who is rabid about the godfather of gonzo.
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Indispensable
As a big fan of Mr Thompson for many years, I became very excited when I heard about this volume. And I was not disapointed when I read it. It is as good as any book he himself has ever written. Although not about any subject in particular, the book tells the story of Hunter S Thompson more interestingly than any biography I've ever read anywhere else. It is also far better than his autobiography "Kingdom of Fear".
It obviously covers a lot of ground, but it never gets boring. Mr Thompsons letters, although not written in the same gonzo style of his books, are still very entertaining and very eloquent. They are obviously more candid, but also a lot less burdened by the "image" of Hunter S Thompson than his post-Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail publications (this is especially true for the second volume of letters, "Fear and Loathing in America"). In his letters, he writes as Hunter Thompson the man, not HST the Legend.
You don't have to be a fan of Hunter S Thompson to enjoy this collection of his correspondings from between 1955 and 1967, but you will love it even more if you've read some of his other works. Then again, people wanting to buy this book are most likely to have read his other works as well.
Higest possible recommendation.
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