Getting extremely loud, incredibly close with Hunter Thompson

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:30:00 +0000

It is an oft-repeated maxim that the best literary books don’t always make for pleasurable listening when they become audiobooks, and that books that sometimes seemed thin in print can be redeemed by the ear. Perhaps this is because the audiobook, as a form, is better suited to entertainment than to weightiness, to brevity than to length, to raucous event than to expansive reflection.

So it is with Hunter S. Thompson’s “Screwjack,” a brief, loud, sometimes incoherent miscellany in print, which becomes, in the audio edition, a pleasurable way to fritter away an hour.

The audiobook benefits from a strong performance by Scott Sowers, a prolific narrator notable for his ability to change his delivery, and even the quality of his voice, from book to book. In mainstream novels of sensation, such as John Grisham’s “The Confession” or Douglas Preston’s “Impact,” Sowers modulates his cadences up and down to fit the rises and falls of the action, veering from restraint to urgency. In Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward Angel,” his delivery turns stately, to match Wolfe’s elegiac tone.

“The Rum Diary”: Inside Johnny Depp’s gonzo fantasy

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Johnny Depp's quasi-filial bromance with Hunter S. Thompson has now extended well beyond the celebrated gonzo journalist's death, with consequences that are a lot like the relationship itself: Strange, endearing and a little bit embarrassing. Depp personally financed and supervised the firing of Thompson's earthly remains out of a cannon at the writer's 2005 funeral, an event captured in Alex Gibney's documentary "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson" (narrated, of course, by Johnny Depp). Having played Thompson's most famous alter ego, Raoul Duke, in Terry Gilliam's psychotronic 1998 version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- a flawed film, but very much worth a second look in its recent Criterion release -- Depp now returns to the Thompson well of booze and acid for a second dip.

Salon.com > Hunter S. Thompson

Getting extremely loud, incredibly close with Hunter Thompson

“The Rum Diary”: Inside Johnny Depp’s gonzo fantasy