What If The Mutineer Is Only A Joke?

I just had a thought: what if Hunter Thompson’s The Mutineer was nothing but a joke Thompson set up to be played after his death?

The Mutineer, of course, was supposed to be the third and final volume of Thompson’s correspondence. The first two were: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol. 1) and Fear and Loathing in America : The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist.

However, The Mutineer was originally scheduled for release in 2005. Then it was rescheduled. Then a new date was announced, and pushed again. It kept happening, as I’m sure you probably remember complaining about before.

Many people complained. Just check out the comments on the amazon page (The Mutineer), but you can also look many places online to see people rant about this. After all, it is 2014 now (nine years later) and still no book. Further, Thompson died a little before the book’s original scheduled release date in 2005. It’s not like he’s out there writing more letters they need for the book. People have blamed the publisher. People have blamed Anita. People have blamed individuals who might have correspondence included threatening to sue. However, we’ve all looked one possibility.

Thompson might be messing with all of us.

Yes, I know he’s dead. However, he loved messing with people. A lot. He always said he had three books worth of letters to publish…but maybe he only had two. Perhaps he kept telling people there were three, published two, and set up deals with publishers that they had to agree to play a prank after his death in order to have rights to what he did have complete.

Perhaps Thompson made the publisher agree to pretend The Mutineer existed. Perhaps he made them agree to keep scheduling publication and then rescinding. Perhaps he wanted to drive all his fans nuts and have them ranting about this everywhere. Perhaps there is no book at all and this is a gigantic, posthumous joke.

Hey, it’s a possibility.