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By GEORGE MEYER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 27, 2008

"Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson," by William McKeen (Norton, $27.95)

Early in his narrative of the life of so-called gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson, biographer and University of Florida journalism teacher William McKeen notes that he and Thompson had a friendly relationship.

That friendship apparently served McKeen well, especially in his meticulous documentation of Thompson's early, formative years. It serves him less well when it comes to critically appraising the work of a writer who, after bursting onto the national scene with a literary outrageousness, slowly degenerated into quite literally a cartoon.

Thompson's an interesting character, regardless. Growing up on the fringes of local gentility in 1950s Louisville, Ky., Thompson built an identity around his antics as a brash troublemaker with a brain.

As he would be described repeatedly later in life, Thompson became known as the "best-read" or "smartest" guy in a room. It became equally obvious through Thompson's early commitment to late hours, alcohol (and later, psychedelics and cocaine) and nonconformity, that he took pride in a self-destructive streak.

Learning but disrespecting journalism in the Air Force led to adventures in freelance and other short-term employment at publications in the Virgin Islands, New York and New Jersey. Editors would fall for young Thompson's stylish flourishes; publishers would blanch at his disdain for deadlines and expense accounting.

Landing in California with his long-suffering wife, Sandy, Thompson cobbled a mottled relationship with San Francisco area bikers into "Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga." In the subtitle - hyperbolic, dangerous, daring - he found a successful tone.

Further relationships with editors, especially at Rolling Stone magazine, led to the two best-selling "Fear and Loathing" books ("In Las Vegas" and "On the Campaign Trail"), which established Thompson's inimitable style and his ability to use himself as a mirror and guide to the truth.

Readers thrilled to his sense of abandon and conjoined it with New Journalism. Journalists praised his over-the-top style and imitated it with varying degrees of success. Hollywood made two major films about his life.

That's the good stuff. Everything after, say, 1980, is less so, and sometimes embarrassingly less. He became parodied as the "Uncle Duke" character in "Doonesbury." His later books, now mostly fictionalized observations, never measured up. Thanks to cocaine, according to his wife (who later divorced him because of his womanizing), he became blocked for most of two decades.

With his health failing after years of self-abuse and his creative impulse dulled, Thompson shot himself in 2005, just a few rooms away from his grown son, Juan.

McKeen keeps a sober voice throughout, though his chronology becomes a little mushy as Thompson himself became less dependable and isolated himself more at his Owl Farm ranch in Colorado.

If there's to be a full critical appraisal of Thompson's work, it must lie elsewhere; McKeen prefers to admire his subject more than debunk or uncloak him.

Of course, most fans of "The Good Doctor" Thompson (thanks to a mail-order divinity degree) don't dwell on his social dysfunctions, in the same way fans of Bob Dylan (as was Thompson) don't dwell on his nasal voice and fans of Jimmy Buffett (who was a Thompson pal) don't dwell on his rudimentary guitar skills.

For fans, McKeen's very readable biography is just what the doctor ordered.

George Meyer, a writer and communications consultant, is president of the Meyer Publishing Co. of Tampa.

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