From Hipsters to Gonzo

Marc Weingarten

‘When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.’ Hunter S. Thompson

The New Journalism was born in controversy. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, an eclectic gang of writers and editors began to experiment, blending the creative techniques of literary fiction with so-called ‘objective’ journalism. The result was a revolution in style as they abandoned the neutral tones of straight reportage in favour of a narrative that was deliberatively provocative, culturally and politically engaged, and self-consciously cool.

The conservative media was outraged, branding the new style ‘parajournalism’. But the experiment survived, and along the way it produced some of the classics of twentieth-century literature, including: In Cold Blood, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Right Stuff, Armies of the Night, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

The New Journalists wrote about big subjects like Vietnam, the Hippie culture, notorious murders, the space program, and the strange and terrible saga of the American dream. Some, like Truman Capote and Joan Didion, articulated a calm, forensic sensibility. For others, like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, translating their take-no-prisoners research and outrageous adventures into words required the invention of a new kind of supercharged, adrenalin-pumped prose.

From Hipsters to Gonzo reveals the fascinating stories behind the research, writing, and editing of masterpieces such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and tells, for the first time, how the New Journalism pushed reportage beyond its narrow limits and changed the literary culture.