Understanding the depth of the Gonzo Arts requires an understanding of its literary criticism, sadly this element is often forgotten.  The idea of Gonzo Journalism comes from a rich intellectual tradition as much as the high powered freak madness.  Therefore to fully explore the Gonzo Arts one should be knowledgeable in literary criticism and commentary.

Here is a hand picked collection of Commentary, so you may all grow in the Gonzo Arts.

Literary Commentary

Fear and Loathing on the Buffalo Trail

Bruce Novoa

MELUS  (Winter 1979)

 

Gonzo

Peter Tamony

American Speech (Spring 1983)

 

The Art of the Insult, or Gonzo Writer Strikes Again

Herbert Mitgang

NYT (Aug. 11, 1988)

 

Review of Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80s

Michael E. Ross

NYT  (Aug. 14, 1988)

 

Lost Generation

Richard Vigilante

National Review (Sept. 16, 1988)

 

The New King of Gonzo Journalism

Lawrence Person

Reason  (June 1989)

 

Still Gonzo After All These Years

Ron Rosenbaum

NYT (Nov. 25, 1990)

 

Life in the Stone Age

Louis Menand

New Republic (Jan. 7, 1991)

 

A Ritual Reenactment of Deviant Behavior

James N. Stull and Hunter S. Thompson

Connecticut Review (Spring 1991)

 

When the Going Gets Weird

A. Craig Copetas

London Review of Books (Dec. 19, 1991)

 

Review of Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie

Thomas Gaughan

Booklist (Oct. 1, 1994)

 

Review of Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie

Michael E. Ross

NYT  (Oct. 23, 1994)

 

Rum Days, Acid Nights

Maureen Freely

Observer Review (Feb. 5, 1995)

 

Still Gonzo after All These Years

Richard Keil

American Journalism Review (Apr. 1996)

 

Hunter S. Thompson: Overview

Dave Mote

St. James Press (1997)

 

Hell, High Water and Heroin: On the Trail of a British Gonzo Journalist to Compare with Hunter S Thompson

Will Self

New Statesman (Mar. 21, 1997)

 

Review of The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman

Charles Kaiser

NYT  (July 13, 1997)

 

Letters of the Young Author (He Saved Them All)

Richard Bernstein

NYT (July 25, 1997)

 

A Lesson for the Whores

Michael Bywater

New Statesman (Dec. 19, 1997)

 

The Proud Highway: The Fear and Loathing Letters, vol. 1

Michael Bywater

New Statesman (1996)

 

Chemical Warfare

Bob McCabe and Terry Gilliam

Sight and Sound (June 1998)

 

Mapping a Prefab Paradise

Nicholas Waywell

Spectator (Nov. 14, 1998)

 

Above the Fear and Loathing (Briefly): Hunter S. Thompson and Professional Athletics

Matt Johnson

Aethlon (Fall 2000)

 

Screwjack

Publishers Weekly (2008)

 

Review of Fear and Loathing in America

Morris Hounion

Library Journal (Nov. 15, 2000)

 

Review of Fear and Loathing in America

James Boylan

Columbia Journalism Review (2001)

 

Fear and Loathing in America: the Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-1976

Don McLeese

Book (Jan. 2001)

 

‘Teeth like Baseballs.’

Brandon Hall

Rendezvous (2002)

 

Kingdom of Fear

Publishers Weekly  (Jan. 13, 2003)

 

Bedtime for gonzo: Hunter Thompson’s latest volume is part memoir, part manic rant

Jack Shafer

NYT  (Feb. 23, 2003)

 

Hey Rube

Publishers Weekly (July 12, 2004)

 

An American Original

Richard Keil

American Journalism Review (2005)

 

The End of the Story

Joe Woodward

Poets & Writers (2005)

 

Hunter S. Thompson

Warren Hinckle

Nation (Mar. 21, 2005)

 

Death of a Comic

William F. Buckley, Jr.

National Review (Mar. 28, 2005)

 

Hunter S. Thompson

Erik Bluhm

ArtUS (March-April 2007)

 

Forever Weird

Forever Weird

NYT (Nov. 18, 2007)

 

Conversion, deconversion, and reversion: vagaries of religious experience in Oscar Zeta Acosta’s autofictions

Madeline Walker

MELUS (Winter 2009)

 

Oscar “Zeta” Acosta’s American Odyssey

Marci L. Carrasquillo

MELUS (Spring 2010)

 

The outcast, the expatriate and the outlaw: Thoreau, Pound and Thompson’s America

Fernando J. Rodriguez

Atenea (January-December 2012)

 

A mirror for observers

Michael L. Shuman

The Mailer Review (Fall 2013)

 

Cockroach dreams: Oscar Zeta Acosta, legal services, and the great society coalition

Stephen Schryer

Twentieth Century Literature (Winter 2014)