It was hard having Hunter Thompson for a father--just ask his only son, Juan Thompson. In Stories I Tell Myself, Juan goes behind Hunter's larger-than-life persona as writer, journalist and Aspen politician to reveal the daily family life of the man he revered, feared and finally accepted. It is a memoir of Juan's insecurity and accommodation around his gonzo father--but Hunter steals the show. Whether holding court at his "headquarters" in the Hotel Jerome bar, with four-year-old Juan nearby taking in the "music and laughing, hooting, yelling... the sharp, slightly sweet, slightly acrid smell of cigarettes and beer," or celebrating Jimmy Buffet's wedding on an "evening of high debauchery, '70s style with copious amounts of cocaine, pot, and booze," Hunter always leaves Juan in the wings. No wonder Juan's story of life with his father features lonesome days at boarding school, months in an ashram and methodical 12-stepping at Al-Anon.
A gun-slinging, alcoholic, belligerent icon, Hunter lived the life of his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas character Raoul Duke until his late 60s. In 2005--broken down with a hip implant and bad back, incontinent, his writing paralyzed by drugs and alcohol, at odds with his latest young wife--Hunter put one of his many guns to his head and killed himself while Juan, his wife and young son played 20 Questions in the next room.
Savoring their moments together building fires, cleaning guns and swimming after midnight in a neighbor's lap pool, Juan eventually recognizes his own strengths and acknowledges Hunter's many weaknesses--at least this is one of the stories he tells himself. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.