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Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson

It's unfortunate that the reissue of this book has such a True Detective type cover. It's not nearly as sensationalist as the cover leads one to expect, and it becomes a little embarrassing to read something that looks like it could contain "Jail-Bait Rape Party XVII".

OK, so there are a couple jail-bait rape anecdotes in here, but it's a book about the Hell's Angels, after all.

However, these Hell's Angels are not the modern-day Hells Angels. They're a loosely-organised, destitute group of nogoodniks who are the next logical step for the gangs of toughs in The Wild One or Rebel Without A Cause. Drug use for them is limited mostly to marijuana or Seconal, and only at the end do they get turned on to LSD. They don't sell, and in fact, all of their income is limited to the straight jobs various members hold down just long enough to qualify for unemployment compensation, or the sale of misappropriated goods.

I'd like to think all of us have a little Hell's Angel in us, waiting for the collapse of civilisation to set us free on a stolen Harley Davidson, stealing food, booze, drugs, and women, leaving in our wake a trail of people shaking their heads, glad that we're gone.

After reading Hell's Angels, there's no way. I could buy a bike, I could dress in cut-off denim vests and leather pants. It's not just that I'd look as if I were on the way to a Leather Daddy convention -- I would be killed within hours of first contact with these people, if not sooner. I'm not even getting into the greatly-elevated criminal mischief of the modern Hells Angels, who would leave me in a shallow grave as part of a SOP rather than just a release of id.

This book is slightly gonzo in the sense that Thompson, the first (both in chronology and stature) embedded journalist of the counterculture, more or less lived with the Oakland chapter of the Hell's Angels, and was involved as much as a distrusted outsider could. However, it is not Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by a long shot. There are no nutso hallucinations of waitress-eating iguanas or bats strafing a speeding convertible.

There is a touch of the insanity present in F&LiLV, but more like the insanity of a stranger in a bar hinting at the time he DP'd a cheerleader with his best buddy. You know there's more under the covers, but it's not sitting out there in the open, and if you don't ask, you won't see it.

If pressed, I'd say the book is about two chapters and 100 pages too long. Being too lazy to check, I think this is HST's first book, and it feels as most first efforts of people whose experience is with the short form, whether it be short story or magazine article. I found myself wanting to skip pages at a time, especially when talking about the private lives and motivations of a lot of the "characters".