Alex Wright

Duke, RIP

February 20, 2005

Having just flown back from Las Vegas two days ago with my twenty year-old dog-eared paperback of Fear and Loathing stuffed into my backpack, I was startled to come home to the news that the Doctor has checked out.

I'm a little surprised that none of the obit writers have tracked down this reference yet, from an early piece that Thompson wrote about that other famous literary shotgun suicide, Ernest Hemingway:

Perhaps he found what he came here for, but the odds are huge that he didn't. He was an old, sick, and very troubled man, and the illusion of peace and contentment was not enough for him--not even when his friend came up from Cuba and played bullfight with him in the Tram. So, finally, and for what he must have thought the best of reasons, he ended it with a shotgun. Thompson wrote that over 40 years ago. And now, I have to wonder whether Papa had been haunting him ever since?

tags: hunter s thompson, thompson, gonzo

File under: Personal

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