Raoul Duke and his attorney go on a mad, drug-fueled tear through late 1960s Las Vegas, where they haphazardly cover a desert motorcycle race and attend a police convention.
The whole time I was reading this book I could not help but keep thinking about how very annoyed I would be if I were on this trip with Duke & the Doc. Not that anyone I know’s ever gone on so wild a tear, but I could certainly see the echoes of herding around friends who’ve drunk too much for their own good, and consequently I was glad to be experiencing these drug-fueled adventures through the prism of a book, seated at a far enough remove to just laugh at them.
Even though I’m a total square who disapproved of practically every single thing going on, I could not help but be amused in spite of myself. Thompson’s prose, scathing and vivid, kept hauling me along. Las Vegas really is an ideal setting for this book, because it’s just as bizarre and timeless and full of distortions as it is. And then every now and then Thompson turns around and punches you in the gut with some restless and yearning passages that really drive home the failed spirit of the times. I have no clue how any of their experiences could be classified as ‘rollicking good times’ like the blurb calls it.
I learned after finishing the book that Thompson’s friend Oscar Acosta Fierro, the real life ‘Doc’ who accompanies him on the Vegas trip, went missing in 1974 and is presumed dead. Considering what he’s like in this book, I’m afraid I’m not at all surprised.
