Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame & Degradation in the '80's

The Gonzo Papers #2

by Hunter S. Thompson

A running tally of the folly of the 80's, the decade known for men of "huge brains, small necks, weak muscles and fat wallets.." - NYT Book Review

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism, Politics, Essays, History, Humor, Memoir

313 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1988

About the author

Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of New Journalism alongside Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. He gained prominence with Hell's Angels, living among the motorcycle club to provide a first-hand account of their lives, and later wrote the unconventional article "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," which established his signature Gonzo journalism style, in which the writer becomes central to the narrative. He is best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, serialized in Rolling Stone, exploring the failure of the 1960s counterculture, adapted for film in 1980 and 1998. Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, on the Freak Power ticket and became known for his intense disdain for Richard Nixon, covering George McGovern's 1972 campaign for Rolling Stone in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. His output declined in the mid-1970s due to fame and substance abuse, though he continued writing sporadically for outlets including Rolling Stone, Playboy, Esquire, and ESPN.com, with much of his work collected in The Gonzo Papers. Thompson was known for lifelong alcohol and drug use, love of firearms, and contempt for authority, often noting that such vices "worked for him." He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Virginia Davison Ray, a librarian, and Jack Robert Thompson, an insurance adjuster, and grew up in the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood. After his father’s death, his mother raised him and his two brothers. An athletic youth, he co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club, attended several schools including Louisville Male High School, and became a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, contributing to its yearbook until expelled for criminal activity. He enlisted in the Air Force, studying electronics and becoming sports editor of the Command Courier, then worked briefly for Time and local newspapers before moving to Puerto Rico to write for El Sportivo and the San Juan Star. He traveled to South America for the National Observer, then lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a caretaker and security guard and published his first magazine feature and short story. Thompson married Sandra Dawn Conklin, with whom he had a son, Juan, and continued writing, experimenting with dextroamphetamine and later cocaine. His reporting on the Hell's Angels and coverage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention shaped his political outlook. After Hell's Angels, he published for national magazines and critiqued the hippie movement, then moved to Woody Creek, Colorado, establishing his home Owl Farm. In 1970, he pioneered Gonzo journalism with his Kentucky Derby article, later collaborating with illustrator Ralph Steadman, and began writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, combining fiction and reportage. His coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign broke traditional boundaries of political reporting. Thompson struggled with fame and substance abuse, missing assignments such as the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974, and retreated to Owl Farm, continuing to write sporadically. He produced The Gonzo Papers, contributed to The San Francisco Examiner, and published memoir Kingdom of Fear in 2003. He married Anita Bejmuk in 2003, and in 2005 took his own life at Owl Farm. Thompson’s Gonzo style blurred fiction and nonfiction, placing himself at the center of his narratives, often creating a mythic persona, Raoul Duke. His political beliefs included support for drug legalization, firearm rights, civil liberties, and skepticism of official narratives, and he engaged in advocacy through the Fourth Amendment Foundation and NORML. Posthumously, scholarships in his name support journalism students and veterans. Thompson remains a cult figure, celebrated for his audacious, immersive writing, fearless social critique, and enduring influence o

Reviews

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fascinating thing about reading Hunter's essays is all the lost episodes of history and the realization that over time events that are so important for a single moment vanish.
This collection focuses mainly on 1984 through 1988 and the fall of Reganism. At the beginning of 1987 Regan was a lame duck president - Gart Hart was the savior of Democracy - and Ollie North and George Bush the First were looking like they had to prepare for 10-20 years behind bars.
Of course the frightening conclusion is that in the end the swine won - Ollie North was an American Hero (even though he was responsible for putting the weapons in the hands of Irans who would kill dozens of american soliders) George Bush was heir to the throne (even though he was dirtier than Nixon) Gart Hart was ostracized and Regan is now considered the greatest president since FDR.
So near so far.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I thought this collection of Thompson's San Francisco Examiner columns, '85-'88, was a shadow of his 60s and 70s writing, but it's not as bad as the first few selections led me to believe. In fact, it's not bad. In fact, there's a good deal here to chuckle over and enjoy. Each of these columns is the same length- approximately 2 3/4 pages in my paperback copy- and most of them include two or three thematically-related elements that bounce off each other with a sharp and dissonant but still pleasing and familiar sound, not unlike that of pool balls breaking in a smoky airport lounge in Phoenix or Denver, where a wager over a Dallas Cowboy's season rushing total or the speed of a motorcycle is being negotiated. Thompson as usual discusses politics, sports and world events in general, but in this collection I found myself most enjoying some of the hilarious set pieces, or just appreciating things like the way he could set a scene with deceptive ease:

It was the middle of a slow afternoon on a cold day in the Rockies, and there were only a few paying customers at the bar, all of them deeply engrossed in their own business...they were locals, cowboys and gamblers, and the last thing any one of them needed was a high-speed Italian motorcycle.

Nixon is here of course, in these pages that is, as is Coleridge, Frank Mankiewicz, Joseph Conrad ("a Polack with a twisted sense of humor"), Reagan, H.L. Mencken ("he lived like a Prussian gambler"), Susan Atkins, Sitting Bull, and "...the hapless Warren G. Harding, who cared about nothing except stud poker, rye whiskey and bimbos"- all the recurring mental characters Thompson used to try to make some sense of the world. The word "baleful" similarly recurs (quite often actually, clearly an important word for Hunter in the late 80s), as well as its adverb form "balefully."

Disconcertingly, Biden also makes a few appearances. We see him running for the Democratic nomination in '88, at least until he plagiarizes Bobby Kennedy or something equally dumb and unethical that I didn't possess the fortitude to commit to memory; but Thompson's treatment of Biden and the rest of these fuckers reminds me that one of the genuinely subversive things about his writing is not some of his more colorful language or wild antics, but his resistance to ideology, his refusal to ally himself with any one side, which would perhaps be even more subversive in '20 than in '88, though just as justified. Accordingly, I sense some apathy towards national politics here, towards the spectacle that Thompson made so compelling and endowed with such resonance in his book about McGovern and Nixon, but frankly it's hard to blame him for not getting psyched up about Dukakis vs. Bush.

What differentiates this from some of his earlier writing, in my view, is that these topics feel...well, like topics, instead of experiences that he has intimately lived and breathed. He seems like a man out of time. That specific era in which he came of age and produced his best writing has passed; he belonged in the 60s and 70s, but the 80s were a strange fit for him. Despite certain caricatures of him (including those made by himself) as a wisecracking cynic, he was actually a romantic and an idealist, and this was a decade of ruthless competition and greed, fit for a generation of swine, as he called it. I sometimes think that the reason I draw such a blank on the details of the Reagan years is that they must have been so depressing that they sapped anyone's will to write well about them, or even to live (even if, curiously enough, it was during those very years that my parents created new life, but that's a mystery for another day).

Thompson had in the past nailed the zeitgeist, in the Hell's Angels and in Las Vegas. He had been at the center of things- Chicago in '68, sitting in a hotel room in December '72 with McGovern and trying to work out what had gone wrong, once almost becoming sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket- but he doesn't seem as plugged in here. Maybe he was tired of it.

He says as much in his author's note at the beginning: "There are times- and this is one of them- when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? [If that's true], there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation." And as I read this over again I think of another passage, later on in the collection, where Hunter talks about getting his cable TV hookup, 200 channels, and worries about "the danger of too much input." Hunter, you had no idea what was coming down the pike. And I guess we don't, either.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long overdue re-read that was just as entertaining as the first time around, I started Generation of Swine on my birthday as a little treat to myself. The time between then and now has been heavily slanted towards work, but the format of the book - articles written for the San Francisco Examiner between '86 and '88 - made it the perfect reading material to fit into my often very short lunch breaks.



Generation of Swine is a brilliant time capsule, bringing back many of the things that were on our (but especially American) minds in the late '80s: AIDS, the War on Drugs, Ghaddafi, acid rain and the Iran/Contra affair as well as the Presidential campaign for '88, showing that while we may have pretty short memories the world has always been an insanely corrupt and often frightening place, and that the only thing that's really changed are the names of the players and how its documented. For me, Hunter S. Thompson is a huge loss from amongst the best of those documentarians, someone who's miles better than most even when he's not at his peak.



Never better than when he's at his most vitriolic, the Iran/Contra scandal and the Presidential campaign would give him plenty of material - especially when it came to George Bush Snr:

"...a truly evil man, a truthless monster with the brains of a king rat and the soul of a cockroach, is about to be sworn in as President of the United States for the next four years...And he will bring his whole gang with him, a mean network of lawyers and salesmen and pimps who will loot the national treasury, warp the laws, mock the rules and stay awake twenty-two hours a day looking for at least one reason to declare war, officially, on some hapless tribe in the Sahara or heathen fanatic like the Ayatollah Khomeini."

Based on this little jaunt through the decade of "Huge brains, small necks, weak muscles and fat wallets...", I think it might be high time for a re-read of all his other books too.

**Also posted at Randomly Reading and Ranting**

[Matīss Mintāls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gonzo meistara žurnālistisko sleju apkopojums no 20.gs astoņdesmito gadu vidus, kas izskatās ar interesantiem un trakiem notikumiem pārpilns laiks. Tiesa, dzīvot ASV tajā laikā diez vai gribētos. Republikāņu prezidents un viņa komanda sākumā šķiet vismaz tikpat crooked kā mūsdienu Donalds T, bet drīzāk pat vairāk. Varbūt DT ir nepārspējams savā lielummānijā un intelektuālajās dotībās, taču nelietības Reigana komandai nebija tik zemas klases un pieticīgas, arī personīgie dēmōni dažiem bija diezgan oj oj oi. Lasot bieži uzdevu sev jautājumu: ko Tompsons šodien rakstītu par Trampu un viņa bandu, ja pirms 15 gadiem nebūtu ielaidis sev galvā lodi. Manuprāt, neko dižu, jo Tramps gan skaļi muld, lemj neprātīgus lēmumus, bet, salīdzinot ar astoņdesmito gadu vājprātu, tas viss ir bērna šļupsti. Ko gan par kompleksu māktu 70 gadīgu bēbi lai saka viens no mūsdienu intelektuāli un psiholoģiski neaizspriedumainākajiem cilvēkiem, kas nebaidījās atbrīvot sevī zvēru, lai kļūtu brīvs cilvēks.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still kind of flipping back and forth through this book on subway rides, so I can't really tell you how much of it I've read, but what I have read fucking rules. As far as the actual subject matter goes, this book runs through the mid-80's and made me realize that the only vaguely political writing I've read from that time period are a pile of Doonesbury Treasuries. So yeah, inevitable Raoul Duke/Uncle Duke comparisons are rampant, but honestly I just let most of the specific political references slide right by. Call me a philistine, but I'm not reading this stuff to get schooled in 80's politics. I'm reading for lines like this: "It was Friday night when we blew up the Jeep. The explosions shook the whole valley and sent chunks of red shrapnel flying all over the house and all the way back to the White River National Forest." ('Orgy of the Dead, p 191.) Or this: "I am genuinely sorry about having to chop the arm off that poor woman's Alaskan parka that you made me wear, but I was only doing my job. We are, after all, professionals." ('Buffalo Gores a Visitor,' p 30.) Yes, the majority of this book is a rumination on the dead zone that was Reagan's second term, and many great tangents and one-liners alike are brought on by Thompson's appropriately apocalyptic view of that handful of years. But it's that side-dish of true 'bat-shit craziness,' as Thompson calls it, that really gets me going. "Fear and Loathing" has this in spades, but with little grounding in reality to give the drug trip any context. "Generation of Swine" hits a sweet spot of insanity vs. social analysis, and is simply tasty, angry brain food. It's like reading good sex that you know you'll regret tomorrow.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

My second favorite of the Gonzo Papers (his collections of journalist columns for newspapers, magazines etc.). A great place to start for anyone new to HST. It's easier to digest than Las Vegas or the campaign trail as every story is short and cuts right to the good stuff.

Something fun I do with the Gonzo papers series is find an entry that's close to the time of year I am (all are dated) and read it. It's fun to see what national "issues of great importance" he's going on about. Betting on the super bowl, elections, etc.

[Arthur Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

IRANNN-CONTRAAA-AAAAAARRG!!!

[Bill Reese · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best thing about this book for me, besides reading HST for the first time, was that it covered the 80's. The 80's were a time in which I was conscious of the goings on about me- but with little knowledge about how the world actually worked. I remember Ollie North before the Iran Contra panel on tv. Many of my relatives thought he was a hero. Most of my friends thought he was a criminal. I was not sure. He is a criminal. It is amaizingly sad to read how Thompson expected Iran Contra to be treated like the major criminal enterprise that it was- a criminal enterprise carried out by the highest powers in Washington. A criminal enterprise that he expected would result in the disgrace of the Reagan admin and the end of George H.W. Bush's political career- if not a prison sentence. Ironic, how it ended up being a mere historical footnote in the rein of the Gipper. Frightening, in the hindsight of 2010, how it led the way for greater crimes of state in the first decade of the 21st century. So, as Hunter pointed out: Watergate was childs play compared to the treachery of Iran Contra- Iran Contra would then be buried in the shadow of a mountain of body bags resulting from the vastly more criminal George W. Bush administration.

[mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

One or five stars? HST was a huge influence on me. Not only on me; but "Journalism" overall. Thompson blurred the boundaries between news/fiction/imagination/interpretation - and its impact on the personal. Of which (the blurring of boundaries) dominates today.
And, he killed himself at the age of sixty-four (64).

We can't go back. there will never be another Hunter Thompson.

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generation of Swine is a savage, gonzo journey through the political and cultural low lights of Reagan's second term. Iran/Contra, Gary Hart scandal, TV evangelists scandals, '88 election, etc. — all the greatest hits of the cultural decline in the second half of the 1980s are here.

This book is classic Hunter S. Thompson. This shouldn't be your first Hunter S. Thompson read (for that, check out Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), but if you enjoy his irresponsible, wild-eyed journalistic style, and are old enough to have grown up memories of the period, then this book will be a treat.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

For all the attention given to his outrageous behavior, HST sure was perceptive about politics. This book focuses on his mid-80's output, and for my money, a lot of this still holds true.

[Ewan · Rating 3 out of 5]

My one concern with Hunter S. Thompson's writing was when, not if, it was going to seep further and further down the avenue of fiction. That was merely a matter of time, and the stressful fallout of years at the height of his craft (and abuse of drugs and alcohol) left the man burnt out. He would never recover, and that much is provable through Generation of Swine. It is a fine book, pockets of interest as he covers the Reagan years, but his passion is gone. Either that, or he simply doesn't care. He re-hashes old lines, trying to fit them into the Gary Hart and George Bush era of the 1980s, but they come across as poor spoofs of great work. His "Generation of Swine" shtick nowhere close to the trailblazing impact "Fear and Loathing..." had on the times.

For those few issues he does care about, though, it is reassuring to see the flickers of a once great writer coming to life and shifting up a gear. Most of this, though, sees Thompson failing to tackle the obstacles that he was once able to overcome with relative ease. A compendium of articles that feels unnecessary, especially after the great times to be had with The Great Shark Hunt. Still some good stuff to be found within, but for every quality article, there are two that have no impact on the culture Thompson was attempting to pick apart.

It is the inevitable downside of commentator turning columnist.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a crying shame that Hunter S. Thompson blew out his brains back in 2005. The world has become ever so much more crazed -- especially in the United States. His Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame & Degradation in the '80's, aka Gonzo Papers Volume 2, is even more relevant today than when it was written in the waning days of the Reagan Presidency and the Iran-Contra Scandal.

What Hunter Thompson could have made of Donald J. Trump with his tiny hands and his mantra, "You're fired!" What a model for the leader of the Free World (so to speak)! I see a pair of tiny handcuffs in his future, with a one-way bus-ticket to Palookaville.

Today's politics have brought me closer to Thompson, and I will probably read a lot more of him in the days to come. I remember, when I was an angry young man in the 1960s, how I hovered on every word written by Norman Mailer! Now I feel the same way about the man Garry Trudeau of "Doonesbury" memoraliazed for all time as Duke.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one had its moments, but Thompson was past his prime at this point in his career and that’s pretty clear.

The name Richard Nixon comes up from time to time. I think he was actually missing Tricky Dick and wishing he would make a comeback.

Still, Hunter, S Thompson was alive and kicking in the 80s, so this book is not without entertainment value.

[Erik Evenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very bizarre and misleading three stars that I’m giving the book, Generation of Swine by Hunter S. Thompson. It’s misleading for a number of reasons, the biggest being that when you have a little over 100 pieces that were presumably originally written for periodicals of all stripes (the book doesn’t say where they were originally published) taken out of context and thrown together in a book, and when some of them are superb, some average and some terrible, you do the math and somehow, you come out with an unflashy, three-star experience. But this book wasn’t that at all, even though that’s what it looks like from what I gave it.

Here’s what it is: a collection of journalistic essays that starts out exciting, gonzo, or new, or whatever, and ends with essays that have devolved into political opinion pieces. Granted, even these are more fun to read than your average political journalist (who, but Hunter Thompson can get away with a weekly column labeling politicians Swine of the Week and still be taken seriously?). But Hunter Thompson has always been at his best when he and his friends give you the tour that the other guides wouldn’t. You’re not sure about the facts that are given on this tour; for instance, when Hunter claims that he met Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Desmond told him to bet against the Bears in Super Bowl XX, “Until I spoke with Desmond I was taking the Bears and not worrying too much about points…” you don’t quite know what to make of it. Or when Hunter’s friend Skinner (who is Skinner by the way? I have no idea. The story certainly doesn’t tell us) calls Hunter up and tells him to pack his bags because they are going to Port-au-Prince to cover the Haitian revolution from the voodoo angle, you scratch your head.
These tales were all firmly documented [Skinner] said, by American
doctors and experts. Local voodoo priests had created their own
monstrous labor pool, making everything from American baseballs to fine
rum and Haggar slacks.
What’s Hunter’s response? “It made no sense, but as a story it was hard to ignore.”
Skinner goes on and says: “I can put you in touch with the Big Boys, the voodoo priests and the zombie masters.”
What does Hunter say to this?
Why not? I thought. It seemed like the right time to go, so I told him to
hold the plane and make arrangements to pick up some cash in Miami.
We would be get into Port-au-Prince in time for dinner tonight.

Full disclosure: I have developed a fairly healthy obsession of Hunter S. Thompson. I’ve read many of his Rolling Stone pieces as well as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and his piece on the Kentucky Derby: The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved. I’ve seen a number of documentaries about him, as well as heard people from Pat Buchanan to Johnny Depp to Jimmy Carter to Bill Murray talk about him with deference and respect as well as bewilderment. It comes down to this for me: Am I insanely in love with the writing or the writer? And the million-dollar corollary to this question: With this style of storytelling, this type of genre-bending, this kind of opaque journalism where so much dramatic license is taken, where the journalist’s take on the story is as important as the story itself, where the journalist actually becomes part of the story, does that first question even matter? It’s what I’m left to ponder. Generation of Swine has been a turning point for me and my opinion of Hunter S. Thompson. Without the gonzo, without the storyteller in the center of the story, shaping it as he sees fit, I’m left thinking that the writer and the writing have to blur into one bizarre entity in order to pique my interest. Otherwise, it’s just three-star writing.

[Matt Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought this book was great! More a diary than anything, snippets and logs taken from throughout the 80's - The Generation of Swine, from Hunters point of view - the best kind! Lots of shorts, political madness, quotes from The Revelation, gambling, corrupt swine and a whole load of other weirdness. It's obvious that Hunter had deteriorated somewhat at this stage (it was a known fact even then) so anyone who goes into reading this should expect it be, what seems like, anyway, crazed ramblings of a guy who'd been completely washed up, thrashed around, chewed, swallowed, digested, regurgitated and spat out by a life of drugs and politics. Yet it all makes sense. For someone who had deteriorated, it's funny how he was still more clued up than the majority of the people around him...

Good book to just glance through; you can open at any chapter and just start reading. A pocket book for the strange. Will definitely be going back to this book from time to time. Good stuff! Loved it!

The End.

[Matt Sides · Rating 2 out of 5]

As far as HST goes, this collection is kind of weak. It's less like the savage HST seen in The Great Shark Hunt or Kingdrom of Fear and more like classic Thompson encased in murky lucite.

Unless you simply must read as much HST as you can, you're better off re-reading The Great Shark Hunt, pausing occasionally to quote Coleridge or state that someone "stomped the terra"

[Ben Lemire]

Reading Thompson's thoughts on Iran-Contra and the 88 election in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election is enough to make me feel nauseous. Time is a flat circle, even the names haven't changed much.

[Sarah Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hunter S. Thompson is a wild ride through the chaotic and often absurd landscape of 1980s America. This collection of essays is a no-holds-barred assault on everything from politics to pop culture, with a heavy dose of the good doctor's signature gonzo flair.

Imagine being strapped to a rocket, fuelled by a potent mix of sharp wit, relentless truth-seeking, and a sprinkle of paranoia. That's the experience of diving into Thompson's world. His words are like a jolt of caffeine, shaking you awake to the bizarre realities of the Reagan era.

Thompson's commentary is both brutally honest and darkly hilarious. He spares no one – not politicians, not celebrities, and certainly not the media. It's a bit like being in the front row of a fireworks display: dazzling, explosive, and you might get singed if you're not careful.

What I love most is Thompson's fearless voice. He rages against the hypocrisy and madness of his time, offering a raw, unfiltered look at the world. It's not always a pretty picture, but it's undeniably captivating.

In "Generation of Swine," Thompson proves once again that he's the master of controlled chaos. It's a must-read for anyone who enjoys a good laugh, a bit of scandal, and a hefty dose of truth.

[Jack T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spanning from the tail-end of '85 to just after the conclusion of the '88 election, this collection of essays by Thompson captures the degradation, hate, fear, and tribalism of an American culture grappling with endemic corruption. Spanning headlines of opportunism by a desperate population, HST finds universally horrid traits within all planks of the social heirarchy, advocating for a return to a past of decency in politics while simultaneously alluding to his desire for a libertarian future bereft of federal indolence and opulence
.
His kicks on Reagan were hilarious - Dutch could not be saved.

He slowly reckoned with his horrible early bets on the race, conceding the liklihood of a GHWB victory, all while continuing his habits of excess, vice, and scheme, in his notorious spells of excessive drinking and gambling, sprinkled with much of the same creed to which the collection hopes to confront.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"The gop will not win another general election in this century," Thompson, 186.

"If making love might be fatal and if a cold spring rain on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison scum right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation," Thompson, 10-11.

[Jason McCracken]

DNF. Too much celebrity name dropping and the crazy over the top stuff got very tiring very quickly... I used to love Thompson but either I've aged badly or his writing has...

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the 70s, Hunter S. Thompson was the lynchpin of the already dying counter-culture movement. The insanity and manic energy that fueled a generation to believe they could change the world was crashing and nobody gave voice to the fears, anger and frustration better than The Good Doctor Thompson. The hangover had begun and the prescription for what ailed us all was a harsh look at what America had become, and how far from the idealistic Dream we had strayed. His writing for Rolling Stone (then an important cultural powerhouse) was some of the sharpest and wittiest satire ever produced in any language.

Fittingly, his own career mirrored this same pattern. The light that shone so brightly a decade before had begun to dim by the mid-eighties, which is where our book opens. His instincts were still as sharp as razor but like all great rockstars (never mind that his instrument was the English language) his output slowed in his second decade of fame. The articles he wrote for the Examiner that make up this book contain the same caustic wit of his more famous work, but they lack a sense of purpose at times. At some turns we find a man less interested in making a statement as he is a deadline and the pieces are substantially shorter than most of the ones included in his 70s collection The Great Shark Hunt. Some show real promise, only to be terminated (so it feels to the reader) prematurely. One wonders how far down the rabbit hole he could have pursued some of these ideas given adequate space.

This is not to say that what we find in the book is without value. A letter to Ralph Steadman is full of wicked pleasures, as is his take on Televangelists. It’s not as densely detailed as his 72 campaign coverage nor is it a summation of an entire generation like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Instead of a comprehensive portrait of the 1980s, we get bits and pieces. We are lucky to have a had his manic insight for as long as we did and his lesser work would still beat the best most of us have to offer. Much has been written over the years about his excessive drug use, so there is little need to repeat that here except perhaps to pause and marvel at the fact that out of the haze of booze, insanity and chemicals, he saw the world more clearly than most ever do. Anyone with an interest in (comparatively) recent American history would do well to read Thompson’s books, he put words together with devastating precision and offered a perspective and insight not seen anywhere else.

Original Post at: http://babygotstacks.com/2015/01/02/g...

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

Love me some HST! He even mentions my home town of Novato on page 20! Man, I wish I had been at THAT party!!! He mentions Novato again on page 135 - remembering the good ol’ Sonomarin Adult Drive-In theater, a place I would strain my neck to the limit of human endurance just to get a glimpse of the screen every time our car passed by on the 101, when I was a young teen! He then mentions Ignacio, which is a subsection of Novato, on pages 200 and 201! How did I miss this guy?

The pieces in here span the time period from December 9, 1985 to November 22, 1988. So it chronicles the horrible reign of Ronald Reagan's second term, and the election of his lackey, George Bush. Disgusting, both of them, and their 'handlers'. Hunter points out that the Republican presidents - Nixon, Reagan, and Bush - all had major scandals - Watergate and the Iran/Contra Affair. He didn't know that Bush's son would have 9/11 and his illegal war on Iraq, and that Trump would try to destroy the USA in less than four years. 5 Republican presidents, 5 horrible, treason-filled presidencies. Ye gods.

Joe Biden in ‘88? Wow, I had no idea. And here he is, on the cusp of the Presidency in 2020. Hopefully...

“Some people are bent like Joe Theismann’s leg, but few of them work for the Redskins, and nobody takes them to a hospital when their bones erupt through their flesh.”

Writing like the above is why I enjoy HST so much! He’ll say anything, no matter how messed up or whacked out. One of my favorites in here is the Herschel Walker net! Hilarious! Ye gods!
My favorite thing about reading this book is remembering how criminal the Reagan administration was. History, especially on the right, seems to not remember this - at all. But, from '86 on, he was as crooked as Nixon and about half of Trump, and he and his handlers deserved to be in prison, as did Nixon and his cronies, and as does Trump and his chorus of evil. I'm so glad this book exists! It proves, to me, that I wasn't remembering it wrong! Thanks HST!

“In a generation of swine, the one-eyed pig is king.”

[Kelsey Carlisle · Rating 5 out of 5]

“That is the hallmark of the Reagan administration—a Punishment Ethic that permeates the whole infrastructure of American life and eventually gets down to George Orwell’s notion, in Animal Farm, that ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’”

Generation of Swine remains my favorite book by Hunter S. Thompson. It is, in my opinion, him at his sharpest. It is clear he had fewer words to work with in his San Francisco Examiner columns, but that works in his favor. It has also remained surprisingly relevant as an account of the first major rumblings of the division and corruption and culture wars that have exploded in the forms they take today. His writings on the Iran/contra affair are some of the most insightful and honest you can find, and reflect a lot of the things we’re seeing the US government do today in places like Israel. He even discusses Joe Biden—a lowly senator and once-failed presidential candidate—and his fumblings and bumblings and scams almost forty years before he would be elected president.

My favorite portions, however, (and the ones I wrote a terrible college paper on) are those discussing the wars on sex and drugs and the meteoric rise of TV preachers. The ‘80s were a fascinating time, balancing more open sexuality and “medicinal” experimentation with the government and famous evangelicals (with quite a lot of overlap) constantly trying to have those things criminalized. Often while they were guilty of these supposed crimes against human decency themselves.

“How long, O Lord, how long? Are these TV preachers all degenerates? Are they wallowing and whooping with harlots whenever they’re not on camera? Are they all thieves and charlatans and whoremongers?”

The more things change, I guess.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

He wasn't as funny or as biting as I thought he'd be. He seemed to be in love with Washington people far too much to inflict real damage. I bet they made copies of the articles and passed to their friends and loved ones: "HST calls me a swine in this latest one, Mum!", "Oh, I'm so proud! I'm going to frame it."



A tattoo: "I'd Rather See My Sister in a Whorehouse Than See My Brother on a Jap Bike."

"A tugboat captain from Pittsburgh tried to put a harpoon in the animal and drag it backward down the river, but on the night before he was scheduled to do battle with the whale he was arrested for aggravated sodomy in a parking lot behind the Stamm Theatre in Antioch."

A T-shirt: "HE'S TAN, RESTED AND READY! ... NIXON IN '88."

"If Ben Franklin and Tom Jefferon had been nickled and dimed to death by lawyers and bimbos and preachers, we might still be some kind of rich and stolid British colony like Canada – or just another continuous new-world experiment in mutated democratic giantism like Brazil."

"Well ... Bush is a genuine 1980s-style Republican, a quintessential type, and he thinks that way ... High labor costs? Uppity workers? Pintos exploding and a whole line of new vans catching fire whenever you turn on the radio... Who needs it? Get rid of those lazy buggers. Fire them and bring in Russian scabs. At least they're honest about being Communists."

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am currently reading this book with 20 pages left to go. By the time I finish it, I won't have access to this page and I hate typing things like this on my smartphone. It's often better to give a book review immediately after reading it, and I feel that I am close enough.

There are a lot of bad reviews of this book that I have read. It has been said that this books lacks interesting stories, material and the "edge" that Hunter had earlier in his career. Almost like Hunter was over reaching for a story. Trying too hard. One could look at it that way, and I can see how it can be perceived as boring or rambling. Reading it today, it can also be hard to connect with due to the out of date "current events" that Hunter wrote about. This book, like Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 can also be perceived as out of touch due to the time period that it was written in, and now reading it in 2021 many political characters mentioned in this book are no longer relevant or are forgotten about in general.

If one reads it as more of dairy of Hunter Thompson through this time period, as I did, lots of entertainment value can be found. I didn't find it as out of date as I did the '72 as mentioned about. It's packed full of dense contents, hard to read but a fast read at the same time. What I liked about it is, each chapter is a new story and it's easy to start and stop over periods without missing anything. It's a great book if you read two or more books at the same time.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure I'd say this is Thompson at his very best, but if you enjoy his peculiar style it's still here in spades. The book contains many good examples of his writing in short essay format. I picked it up because I wanted something interesting and easily readable ("literary popcorn," in my mind). His prose is explosive, bizarre, and shrewd, as he castigates the American political figures of the time with outlandish visions of violence and public disgrace.

Here Thompson is writing at the time of the Iran-Contra scandal. This is a good topic for his essays: his writing thrives when fueled by moral / political outrage, and Iran-contra was something that looked to be the next Watergate. It's interesting to watch the scandal develop and then fade through his eyes.

Thompson loved politics for the same reasons he did sports: a fascination with winners and losers, analyzing their plays, calling the outcome (and making bets). It's interesting, then, to see how often he made the wrong call in these essays. I suspect he wasn't always giving a journalistic account so much as trying to influence the development of these things with his station.

Overall, it was an engaging slice of mid-Eighties Americana.

[Chickens McShitterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over 100 essays of insightful commentary on 80s politics (and a seething contempt for the GOP and rightwingers in general). Thompson was clearly having some trouble rationalizing the decisions of the electorate during the Reagan years. He killed himself during the Bush years, and I can only imagine what he would think of the Trump years. Perhaps this times 1000:

"It is difficult for the ordinary voter to come to grips with the notion that a truly evil man, a monster with the brains of a king rat and the soul of a cockroach, is about to be sworn in as president of the United States for the next four years...and he will bring his gang in with him, a mean network of lawyers and salesmen and pimps who will loot the national treasury, warp the laws, mock the rules, and stay awake 22 hours a day looking for at least one reason to declare war, officially, on some hapless tribe in the Sahara or heathen fanatic like the Ayatollah Kohmeni" (281).

Oh, Hunter. If only you knew how close to the truth you actually were.

[Dan S · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still think the trademark HST is there to be found, it just takes a little more digging to find it at this point in his career (and it takes some legit literary excavation by the time you get to Hey Rube).

Jann Wenner's assertion that Thompson just couldn't put it together after the Rumble in the Jungle debacle doesn't check out, and I think it's safe to chalk part of that up to a rumored falling out between the two.

Because he does put it together at times. There are multiple columns in this collection (especially when Thompson focuses his energy on lashing the Democratic Party) where his voice is clear and poignant as in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.

However, on the whole, this is a repetitive mess of columns that, to the unfamiliar reader, could come off as the ramblings of a degenerate gambler. Seriously, if you're not interested in the constant handicapping of past presidential races or you're not that big of a HST fan in general, steer clear.

[Tocotin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Long story short, the book I really wanted to read today was Warchild by Karen Lowachee, but I didn't want to wear it down by taking it with me on the train and took this one instead. Shouldn't have. It's the last time ever I read Hunter Whatever Thompson, nay it's the last time I even come near his stuff. Jeez, what a stinker, what a waste of time. So I might have kinda sorta enjoyed Hell's Angels, but that credit is over. This – it's violently boring, it stinks of unwashed macho feet, and in places where it isn't boring, it gets vile. Like the stuff about the killing of the fox – am I the only one who's bothered by it? I don't care if he made it up, at the point I got there I wanted to chuck this thing out the car window. Actually, I'm not planning to take it home. It's heavy. It's dreadful. The less is said, the better. Oh, I liked two pages, these might be useful, and they are going home with me tonight.