The kitchen readings : untold stories of Hunter S. Thompson /

According to the couple of old Woody Creek buddies of Hunter S. Thompson's (aka "Doc") who compiled this ramshackle selection of anecdotes about the gonzo practitioner, the kitchen at Doc's was the favored place for conversation since the living room had devolved into a "squalid, fetid, pigsty." Thompson's legend as a fire-breathing, vituperative hellion had spread far and wide-due in no small part to his own self-promotion of it-but many old-time residents of the Colorado mountain town where he holed up for several decades were fiercely protective of their resident hell-raiser. That attitude is clearly represented by this book's pair of authors, an artist and a sheriff, who relate numerous tales of paranoid and wanton destruction (often involving cocaine, firearms and too many glasses of Chivas) with the same indulgence one reserves for a dangerously eccentric relative. The book keeps the stargazing to a minimum and mostly presents Thompson the man-one who was fortunate he could write because he comes off here as pretty useless at day-to-day life. The authors recount everything from Thompson's invention of shotgun golf to the reason he needed all those peacocks around. While Cleverly and Braudis try to puncture the media myth of Thompson the Indestructible (on his aborted attempt at covering Vietnam, they sardonically note that he seemed to "only like danger when he was the most dangerous person in the room"), it's a gentle ribbing; we should all have friends as generous and forgiving as Thompson clearly did. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

It was bound to happen. First Ralph Steadman bares all (The Joke's Over: Ralph Steadman on Hunter S. Thompson, 2006), and now the neighbors come bearing savage tales of the late, great gonzo god. Hunter S. Thompson was lucky to have landed on a spot where the sheriff turns a blind eye to funny-smelling smoke and white lines not on the highway. Said sheriff has served his constituency well enough that they've returned him to office every election since 1986, though Braudis must have wished at times for a quieter and more law-abiding constituent, especially when Thompson discharged a firearm--a favorite pastime--directly into one of his employees. "Well, it could be marginal, and I emphasize marginal, criminal endangerment," says the D.A., on hearing the improbable tale of the disappearing bear whom Thompson was aiming at. Concludes Braudis, "Hunter got a lecture from me, ranging from condemning cavalier reliance upon firearms to suggesting alternatives to 'bounce-shooting' in the interest of bear mitigation," adding that though Thompson was miffed, the friendship survived. Aspen artist Cleverly chimes in with tales of his own, recounting odd encounters with Thompson groupies--a less sane lot than most, not surprisingly--and ingestions in the company of the grand man himself, who, we learn, mumbled not just when onstage and was even less reliable and regularly more tweaked than even the fiercest of previous reports revealed. Yet Thompson was also a Southern gentleman capable of ordinary chivalry and much generosity, and, of course, a hero to his friends, who thankfully keep the hero worship set to low here. "Not that Hunter didn't merit the awe," writes Cleverly. "It's just that those who knew Doc knew that an attitude of awe rarely paid off." There are even a few matters for biographers to ponder: Did Thompson really spend time in Saigon? Was he really pals with V.S. Naipaul? A pleasant addition to Thompsoniana, though only completists will find it required reading. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.