Stories I Tell Myself

A fresh and moving glimpse of Hunter S. Thompson, the countercultural icon and enfant terrible of American journalism, in a rarely seen role: as an unpredictable, messy, imperfect father.
Patron saint of gonzo journalism, wild man, psychedelic, troublemaker, truth-teller, iconoclast, raconteur. The legendary Hunter S. Thompson was all of the above. But behind his mythic persona lies a lesser-told story: that of a demanding husband and father with a hair-trigger temper whose scathing wit could cut as deeply at home as on the page. In this intimate, surprising memoir, Juan F. Thompson, Hunter’s only son, tells of a coming-of-age that was at once singular—with nights spent crawling under barstools while his father held court at the Hotel Jerome, and days spent sailing with Jimmy Buffett while his parents’ marriage fell apart—and deeply familiar, as father and son struggled to forge a connection under the crushing weight of expectation.