Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967Paperback, 7 April 1998

This first volume of the "Fear and Loathing Letters" begins with a high school essay written in 1955 - when Hunter S. Thompson was a wise (perhaps too wise) teenager in Louisville - and takes us through 1967, when the publication of "Hell's Angels" made the author an international celebrity (and nearly resulted in his death). In the intervening years, Thompson's prolific and often profound correspondence gives us an unforgettable vista of the America of the Eisenhower and Kennedy years as well as an authoritative introduction to the cultural revolution of the sixties. With a vicious eye for detail, a rude wit, and a brutal take on any and all pretenders, Thompson's missiles pierce pomposity and rattle the soul. Whether written to his mother, Virginia, or to such luminaries as Charles Kuralt, Philip Graham, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Carey McWilliams, Lyndon Johnson, and Joan Baez, the letters represent the evolution of an American original, a singular voice defying an era of banality.