The famous inventor of Gonzo journalism portrayed as never before, both his charisma and his adventurous work.
Hunter S. Thompson detonated a two-ton bomb under the staid field of journalism with his early magazine pieces and revelatory "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing" campaign coverage in Rolling Stone. When Thompson was on, there was no one better at capturing who Americans were and what America was, be it in politics, at the Kentucky Derby, or in the Hells Angels' lair. William McKeen became friends with Thompson after writing a monograph on his journalism. McKeen now has interviewed many of Thompson's associates who wouldn't speak before, from childhood friends to colleagues, to assistants who sat around the Woody Creek, Colorado, kitchen control room late at night when Thompson did most of his work. McKeen gets behind the drinking and drugs to show the man and the writer—one who was happy to be considered an outlaw but took the calling of journalism as his life. 16 pages of photographs
For Hemingway and Fitzgerald, there was Paris in the twenties. Later generations had Big Sur, Greenwich Village and Woodstock.
But in the Seventies, there was Key West. That was where a generation of artists -- Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, Jimmy Buffett, Hunter Thompson and others -- found their style and artistic voice.
In Mile Marker Zero (Crown, 2011) William McKeen tells the story of these remarkable artists and how this two-by-four island at the end of the road shaped their lives. For hundreds of years, pirates and poets and pot smugglers and painters have called the wacky little town home. Here are the stories of a generation that nearly went crazy from the heat. Grab your margarita and lock up your children.
McKeen is the author of Outlaw Journalist (W.W. Norton, 2008), Highway 61 (W.W. Norton, 2003), Rock and Roll is Here to Stay (W.W. Norton, 2000) and several other books about American music and popular culture.
He's also completed an anthology of stories about growing up in Florida called Homegrown (University Press of Florida, 2012).
He teaches at Boston University and chairs its journalism department. He was a newspaper reporter and magazine editor before beginning his teaching career.
He is a father of seven children and lives with his wife Nicole, a magazine editor, on the rocky coast of Cohasset, Massachusetts.
Please visit www.williammckeen.com
