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)
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