When the Going Gets Weird: The Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson : A Very Unauthorized Biography [Hardcover]

Peter O. Whitmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1993

A look at the life and lunacy of the well-known journalist traces the people and events that shaped Thompson's life, describing his troubled Kentucky childhood, his life in New York City in the 1950s, his encounters with Kesey and others, and his writing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Whitmer ( Aquarius Revisited ) weighs in here with the third in the recent spate of unsuccessful unauthorized biographies of legendary gonzo journalist Thompson. Though Whitmer can write stylishly--"Thompson was a rock star trapped in the mind of a journalist"--he sketches his subject's life and work with little depth. Whitmer interviewed Thompson in 1983 for the Saturday Review , but his recollection of him offers less insight than bizarre detail: Thompson drank Bloody Marys with a side of coffee. Moreover, Whitmer lacks the sources of E. Jean Carroll's oddly annoying The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson (Nonfiction Forecasts, Dec. 14, 1992). He did not speak to Ralph Steadman, Thompson's illustrator sidekick, whose tale of a trip to cover a heavyweight title fight in Zaire is the highlight of Paul Perry's otherwise undistinguished Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson (Nonfiction Forecasts, Nov. 16, 1992). Were these three books mixmastered and then joined together to make one Thompson biography, readers would be better served. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Because the 1960s lifestyle has become an item of fascination for many Americans, it seems fitting that Hunter S. Thompson, one of its symbols, has become the subject of several new biographies (E. Jean Carroll's Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson , previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/92, and Paul Perry's Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson , Thunder's Mouth, 1993). Whitmer, author of Aquarius Revisited ( LJ 7/87), has produced an unvarnished picture of a self-destructive writer at work and at "play." Fueled by alcohol and drugs, Thompson's raw, angry style of writing came to be called "gonzo" journalism. Writing of politicians from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton and events from Vietnam to the Kentucky Derby, Thompson has covered the American scene for a number of newspapers and magazines, but he is most closely associated with Rolling Stone. In many ways, this is a sad story of a creative person who wasted much of his talent. Recommended for biography and popular culture collections.
- Rebecca Wondriska, Trinity Coll. Lib., Hartford, Ct.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 335 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion Books; 1st edition (April 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562828568
• ISBN-13: 978-1562828561
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,917,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

POW - born: Boston. Raised: Salzburg, L.A., Washington, D.C. Education: University of California, Berkeley. Degree: Ph.D. Clinical Psychology. Sports: First US Rugby Team to tour South America [wing-forward]. Music: First drummer for the Turtles. Interests: Civil Rights, Latin American/Caribbean History. Personality Theory. PTSD. Twinless Twins [hence: Elvis bio.]
Lives: Montserrat, British West Indies. [see: scribd.com]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars pass on this and read "proud Highway", August 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: When the Going Gets Weird: The Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson : A Very Unauthorized Biography (Paperback)

I don't know.. I have some ambivalent feelings about Mr. Whitmer's book on Hunter S. Thompson. On one hand I really like reading about Hunter Thompson and suppose that I myself am a kind of weird groupie when it comes to reading about him and a few other writers (I bought this one at a garage sale for 50 cents). On the other hand I really dislike reading gossipy books where the author has only a little understanding of his subject or his work and is mainly just trying to cash in on the artist's celebrity, telling second hand stories that might or might not be true. I myself am guilty of reading these little tabloid-like pieces and almost always feel dirty afterward. Especially if the subject is worthy of some respect in his artistic life and HST certainly is. Artists should be given the space they need to work through their inner struggles while sorting it all out. This requires huge amounts of slack for an artist like Thompson. But then after they die all the lies and sentimental twisted memories can come flooding out and it's all so much less embarrassing for them and for us. I do understand why Mr. Whitmer would want to do a book on HST. And his might be better than the other bios as the above reviewers say. But make no mistake, Peter Whitmer did this one to make some easy money and Hunter Thompson's name sells better a lot better than his own.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The only good Thompson bio so far, April 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: When the Going Gets Weird: The Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson : A Very Unauthorized Biography (Hardcover)

It's a shame this book is out of print. As one of three Hunter Thompson biographies published in the spring of 1993, Whitmer's was the only one that wasn't an utter embarrassment to its author or publisher. He actually did some concerted, smart research, thought about his subject, did more reporting and obviously wrote more than a single draft of the book. The fact that Whitmer has a brain and knows how to use it didn't hurt. And unlike Perry & Carroll, Whitmer can write. In addition to having done more and better research than his rivals, his prose is clean, fluid and graceful. Both stylistically and factually, this is the only Thompson biography worth reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Thompson Biography, February 9, 2007

By 

MICHAEL MCVAY - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When The Going Gets Weird : The Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson : A Very Unauthorized Biography (Paperback)

This is the most fact-filled accurate and complete biography of Hunter S Thompson thus far. Also, it contains an interesting psychological profile of Hunter S. Thompson because the author is a Ph.D. psychologist.