Keep This Quiet Too!: More Adventures with Hunter S. Thompson, Milton Klonsky, Jan Mensaert

by Margaret A. Harrell

KEEP THIS QUIET TOO! is called a "masterpiece memoir of four writers' lives (the author's as well as the title characters') as Margaret pits wits with - and learns from - Gonzo creator, Hunter S. Thompson, New York City poet-genius/wiseman Milton Klonsky, and her eventual husband, Belgian poet, Jan Mensaert, with whom she endures his suicidal bouts and artistic highs and lows. At one point, trying desperately to find her, Hunter writes, "Dear Margaret, Where are you and why? I've lost track completely. My last definite word was from a toilet-hole in Algiers." Hunter wants her to work on his next manuscript. This is 1971. Moving from 1970 (Belgium/Cairo) to 1986 (Jung Institute Zurich), the book ends up fittingly at Owl Farm. Where else could the last two chapters take place? There, Hunter is in fine form, trying to take the romance to the next level. Actually, they both are intent on it.

REVIEWS: Keep THIS Quiet Too!

Wisconsin Bookwatch: January 2013,
Midwest Book Review,
The Memoir Shelf:

The extraordinary sequel to "Keep This Quiet", Keep This Quiet Too! More Adventures with Hunter S. Thompson, Milton Klonsky, Jan Mensaert continues the memoir chronicles of four adventurous writers (author Margaret Harrell, who tells her story in first person, and the three named in the subtitle). Spanning the years 1970 through 1986, and set in locales ranging from the United States to Morocco, Belgium, and the C.G. Jung Institute within Switzerland, Keep This Quiet Too! is a real-life saga of living and learning with eyes and ears open. At times adventurous, at times sensual, Keep This Quiet Too! hinges upon the complexities of human relationships, especially the challenges posed by the heart-wrenching feelings of love that may or may not be fully requited. Highly recommended.


REVIEW BY Poet Ron Whitehead:

"Margaret A. Harrell has done it again. In her brutally compassionately explicitly honest second autobiography KEEP THIS QUIET TOO! More Adventures with Hunter S. Thompson, Milton Klonsky, Jan Mensaert, Harrell manages to repeatedly pull the rug out from under the reader....From depth psychology to dream analysis to hangoutologies to ecstatic love making to out of body astral travels to spirit guides, adventures and misadventures, she is guided and guides herself ever homeward to her own heart and soul. Margaret A. Harrell’s new, second, autobiography, like volume one, is a masterpiece. I thank her for sharing, openly honestly, so many intimate details of her journey."

Ron Whitehead, the author of numerous poetry books & CDs, is in the upcoming Ralph Steadman documentary hosted by Johnny Depp.

BACK COVER: "Margaret Harrell baited the hook and I bit. Boy did I bite. . . She used titillation, and a masterful way of revealing herself to build engrossment, starting with Keep This Quiet! Any thinking, living person will be locked in from the beginning. Knowledge of the three men is not a must. She oozes sexuality, sensuality and I believe these traits go towards interweaving the three men. I believe it to be spellbinding. A hot sweaty tango of words," writes Martin Flynn, owner of HST Books. See his review here: http://hstbooks.org/, where he writes: "Before long I’m immersed in her world. It looked to me like a world filled with constant risk. The risk being getting hurt, not physically but…. Hurt in love if you like.. Imagine laying one’s self prostrate before someone, not knowing how things will roll. Margaret did it then with her lovers. And she’s doing it now in the sense of opening her heart to her readers. I was somewhat taken-aback with her honesty."

"A book with so many dimensions is a gift with many surprises in it," writes Belgian Chris Van de Velde, philosopher, writer, teacher, therapeutic coach.

284 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2012

About the author

The latest of Harrell's books is "The 'Hell's Angels' Letters: Hunter S. Thompson, Margaret Harrell and the Making of an American Classic," available at the publisher's website, Norfolk Press. Harrell was 3 times a Fellow at MacDowell Colony for artists. Marrying a Belgian poet, she lived in Morocco, then took a sharp turn into spiritual growth. In Zurich she studied at the C. G. Jung Institute and had a dramatic "Confrontation with the Self," or as Jung termed it, "Confrontation with the Unconscious." Her former perspective on reality burst at the seams to absorb the jolts in consciousness that followed. Returning to live in Raleigh, NC in late 2002, she began to teach light body courses and professionally display her cloud photography. Having been Hunter Thompson's copy editor on "Hell's Angels" at Random House, the book that first sky rocketed him to fame, she focused on his letters to her when she began to bring out a four-volume "Keep This Quiet!" memoir series in 2011. That book was titled, "Keep This Quiet! My Relationship with Hunter S. Thompson, Milton Klonsky, and Jan Mensaert." "Keep THIS Quiet Too!" followed, and then "Keep This Quiet! III: Initiations." The latest volume was "Keep This Quiet!" IV: "More Initiations" (April 27, 2016). It is reissued, heavily updated, with much new material that built on top of the earlier edition. The new edition is out March 21, retitled "Ancient Secrets Revealed." What are the secrets? Wisdom teachings that emerged through initiations.

Reviews

[Bradley Weber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bravely told and hauntingly wise, Margaret Harrell’s KEEP THIS QUIET! books read like a Sally Rand fan dance at the top of her form. Harrell entices with promised details of her relationships with Milton Klonsky, Hunter Thompson, and Jan Mensaert, then draws readers closer with wit and wonderful honesty about how these men influence her life. The tales and their telling reveal—through glimpses—the shape and size of Ms. Harrell's heart. Every peek and flash, flourish and strut, accumulates into a grand, detailed picture of who Margaret Harrell was then and who she is now.