Old bloke tops self

Innocently popped into Smiley Brothers for sugar, and saw the sidebar of the early edition of the Evening Snores- Hunter S Thompson, the stupid bugger, has shot himself at his ranch. He always liked guns too much. Maybe it felt good going out holding hands with a friend, as it were, but his selfishness shines out. Gunshot suicide makes the worst mess imaginable, and the old bastard left this to be discovered by his son. I am glad he was not my dad, but Fear and Loathing was for some years in the Top 10 novels list. I can't find my yellowed, much-thumbed and cracked-spine copy either in the 'modern classics' or 'drugs n sex' bookshelves, but its first line-

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

still quickens the heartrate in a sympathomimetic adrenochrome surge.

Barstow is a god-forsaken town in the Mohave Desert between California and Nevada, housing a military base and not much else. You wouldn't want to go there. My step-niece's Lindsey's insane mother moved her there for 4 awful weeks last year, after falling for a dashing helicopter pilot in the US army.



Addendum
Jon Ronson speculates that Gonzo was ill. He'd had spinal surgery twice in recent years according to other obits. If so, I forgive him.