"Nobody bugs me as long as I'm flying the colors.", 1. Dezember 2008

Thompson got the idea to write about the Hell's Angels from Carey McWilliams of "The Nation," the book became a turning point in his career. Researching the cycle boys had inherent dangers because Thompson wanted to submerge himself in the action, trying to understand the gang's perspective of live - if they had one. As they normally steered way clear of the media, he was lucky to meet police reporter Birney Jarvis of the San Francisco Chronicle who introduced Thompson to the biker gang. As Jarvis was also an ex-vice president and lifetime member of the Hell's Angels, this was a golden contact.And then the run was on. Outlaw motorcyclists rolled in packs toward their annual July 4th outing, a time for sharing the wine jug, pummeling old friends, and generally terrorizing the populace. Non-Angel Hunter S. Thompson, in a year of close association had earned the exclusive right to be their "writer in residence," on a basis of temporary security from being stomped or chain-whipped. What do outlaw cycle boys do, closed off from every decent citizen, in an orgiastic camp surrounded by thrill-seekers, uneasy highway patrolmen, and Army recruits ready to be bugled out of bed and issued bayonets?From this beginning, Hunter Thompson goes not only behind the scenes at the run but back through the drama of the menace being born: How did a gang of local motorcyclists become nationally infamous, with storm warnings going up all across the country at the mere rumor of their approach? Backing up his own experience of the Angels with official reports, newspaper write ups, eyewitness accounts and unpublished letters, Thompson arrives at the disturbing fact that until now almost everything printed about the Angels is pure fiction: born of a national rape mania, story-hungry editors and the actual possibility of knowing what went on. At the same time, Thompson exposes the media's role in their brutal reputation, an almost defunct motorcycle club was transformed into Dillinger-style villains.The story began for Thompson in a sleazy San Francisco dive, but from there it took unpredictable shifts as he personally became more and more involved with violence - finally pushing his luck too far. The book reads like a novel in parts, with exciting tales and life-size characters: Charger Charley the Child Molester, Big Frank who jerks out eyeballs, Tiny the Angels' enforcer, who earns a living as a bill collector, Mama Lorraine, auctioned off for twelve cents; and a mind-spinning finale of hired private gunmen, country toughs, a giddy chamber of commerce capacity crowd of bystanders, vigilantes, and fired-up cops.This book is - even more so today - a broad comment on the modern tendency to violence. It is also one of the first examples of the participatory "gonzo" journalism that Thompson perfected. Following the success of Hells Angels, Thompson was able to publish articles in a number of well-known magazines during the late 1960s, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire and others. Thompson also wrote in-depth about the hippies of San Francisco, deriding a culture that began to lack the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats.

       Detailreiche Beschreibung der Anfangsjahre der Hells Angels, 23. Oktober 2001

Dieses buch gehört wahrscheinlich zu den besten Büchern die Thompson geschrieben hat.Ich finde es sehr gut wie Thompson seine persönlichen Erfahrungen mit offiziellen Mitteilungen über die Hells Angels vermischt.Es ist ihm eine sehr objektive Darstellung der Hells Angels gelungen.Außerdem finden sich dort noch einige interssante Informationen über andere Gangs .Dieses Buch ist ein guter Gegensatz zu Sonny Bargers Buch welches subjektiv geschrieben ist und sich nur bedingt empfehlen läßt.Jeder der mehr aus der Anfangszeit jener Motorradgang lesen will sollte sich dieses Buch zulegen.Schade nur das es noch nicht in deutscher Sprache erschienen ist