![]() ![]() The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke (Hunter S. ![]() Random House published the hardcover edition in July 1972, with additional illustrations by Steadman The New York Times said it is "by far the best book yet on the decade of dope," with Tom Wolfe describing it as a "scorching epochal sensation." Plot In November 1971, Rolling Stone published the combined texts of the trips as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream as a two-part story, illustrated by Ralph Steadman, who two years before had worked with Thompson on an article titled " The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved". Thompson joined the array of Vegas experiences within what he called "an essentially fictional framework" that described a singular free-wheeling trip to Vegas peppered with creative licenses. On April 29, 1971, Thompson began writing the full manuscript in a hotel room in Arcadia, California, in his spare time while completing " Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," the article chronicling the death of Salazar. Thompson (left) and Oscar Zeta Acosta in Caesars Palace, c. Besides attending the attorneys' conference, Thompson and Acosta looked for ways in Vegas to explore the theme of the American Dream, which was the basis for the novel's second half, to which Thompson referred at the time as "Vegas II". Weeks later Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to report for Rolling Stone on the National District Attorneys Association's Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs being held from April 25–29, 1971, and to add material to the larger Fear and Loathing narrative. What originally was a 250-word photo caption assignment for Sports Illustrated grew to a novel-length feature story for Rolling Stone Thompson said publisher Jann Wenner had "liked the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication-which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it." He had first submitted a 2,500-word manuscript to Sports Illustrated that was "aggressively rejected." ![]() These writings became the genesis of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. Thompson wrote that he concluded their March trip by spending some 36 hours alone in a hotel room "feverishly writing in my notebook" about his experiences. The two needed a more comfortable place to discuss the story and decided to take advantage of an offer from Sports Illustrated to write photograph captions for the annual Mint 400 desert race being held in Las Vegas from March 21–23, 1971. Thompson was using Acosta-a prominent Mexican-American political activist and attorney-as a central source for the story, and the two found it difficult for a brown-skinned Mexican to talk openly with a white reporter in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, California. The first trip resulted from an exposé Thompson was writing for Rolling Stone magazine about the Mexican–American television journalist Rubén Salazar, whom officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department had shot and killed with a tear gas grenade fired at close range during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War in 1970. Thompson took with attorney and Chicano activist Oscar Zeta Acosta in March and April 1971. The novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is based on two trips to Las Vegas, Nevada, that Hunter S. It was later adapted into a film of the same title in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, who portrayed Raoul Duke and Dr. Illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the novel first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971 before being published in book form in 1972. Thompson's highly subjective blend of fact and fiction, which it popularized, became known as gonzo journalism. The work is Thompson's most famous book, and is noted for its lurid descriptions of illicit drug use and its early retrospective on the culture of the 1960s. The story follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Doctor Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze, all the while ruminating on the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement. The book is a roman à clef, rooted in autobiographical incidents. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a 1971 novel in the gonzo journalism style by Hunter S. ![]()
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