Meeting Hunter S Thompson as the Observer did in 1998, to mark the publication of his novel The Rum Diary, was never for the faint-hearted, but certain to generate good copy: a kind of courtesy, perhaps, from the original gonzo journalist.
Drink and drugs were obligatory (E Jean Carroll’s account of Thompson’s daily routine described him diligently alternating Chivas, cocaine, orange juice, acid and Chartreuse); fire and explosives were a distinct possibility and that was merely the baseline. ‘I know for sure he shot at a colleague of mine,’ wrote Marianne Macdonald, relating a story involving a hunt for a bobcat (accused of molesting the peacocks that lived in Thompson’s sitting room), which became a manhunt. The same colleague suffered Thompson’s attempt to drive him home after ‘six or seven hours of alcoholic and narcotic abuse’ – a regular trick with journalists – at 90mph on icy roads.
‘Thank God I visited in summer,’ wrote Macdonald, who perhaps also got off lightly meeting a flu-ridden Thompson in his Aspen lair, shared with his ‘sweet-natured’ assistant, Heidi, and a man called Wayne who had spent 15 years making a (still-unfinished) documentary about him. She found Thompson, 61, ‘craggy and handsome’ but also shuffling and inarticulate, his ‘annihilated’ insides unable to tolerate anything except avocado and yoghurt.
Macdonald was handed the book proofs and a margarita; Thompson busied himself with a ‘large bag of white powder’. It was good, but not great, Macdonald thought, and likely to be his last. Thompson’s health and concentration were too ravaged for writing; for someone whose reputation rested on ‘hell-raising and great writing, to have one without the other must seem a bad joke’.
In moments of lucidity, Thompson confided he was a romantic who feared ‘growing old and helpless’ and had considered suicide; driving Macdonald erratically to the airport – she did not escape that rite of passage – he listened as she shared her own unhappiness, ‘clumsily squeezing my shoulders’. It was perhaps not the wildest Thompson encounter, but one suffused with gentle sadness, and a surprising mutual sympathy.
