Kingdom of Fear

Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

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Brilliant, provocative, outrageous, and brazen, Hunter S. Thompson's infamous rule breaking -- in his journalism, in his life, and of the law -- changed the shape of American letters and the face of American icons. Kingdom of Fear traces the course of Thompson's life as a rebel -- from a smart-mouthed Kentucky kid flouting all authority to a convention-defying journalist who came to personify a wild fusion of fact, fiction, and mind-altering substances.
Call it the evolution of an outlaw. Here are the formative experiences that comprise Thompson's legendary trajectory alongside the weird and the ugly. Whether detailing his exploits as a foreign correspondent in Rio, his job as night manager of the notorious O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, his epic run for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket, or the sensational legal maneuvering that led to his full acquittal in the famous 99 Days trial, Thompson is at the peak of his narrative powers in Kingdom of Fear. And this boisterous, blistering ride illuminates as never before the professional and ideological risk taking of a literary genius and transgressive icon.
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Book details:
  • Simon & Schuster | 
  • 384 pages | 
  • ISBN 9780684873244 | 
  • November 2003
$17.99 List Price

Read an Excerpt

When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro


There are no jokes. Truth is the funniest joke of all.

-- Muhammad Ali


The Mailbox: Louisville, Summer of 1946


My parents were decent people, and I was raised, like my friends, to believe that Police were our friends and protectors -- the Badge was a symbol of extremely high authority, perhaps the highest of all. Nobody ever asked why. It was one of those unnatural questions that are better left alone. If you had to ask that, you were sure as hell Guilty of something and probably should have been put behind bars a long time...

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