亨特·斯托克顿·汤普森

亨特·斯托克顿·汤普森（英语：Hunter Stockton Thompson ，1937年7月18日—2005年2月20日）出生于美国肯塔基州路易维尔，是一位美国记者、散文集、小说家。

生平

1937年，汤普森出生在美国肯塔基州路易维尔，他是杰克·罗伯特·汤普森的三个孩子里的长子，他父亲是第一次世界大战的老兵，退役后从事保险业，母亲是维吉尼亚州的雷·戴维森，是一个图书管理员。

1934年9月，汤普森的父母在肯塔基州大学经过朋友的介绍而认识，1935年11月2日，他的父母结婚。

1943年12月2日，汤普森6岁，他们家定居到切罗基三角高地附近的兰斯德尔大道2437号。

1952年7月3日，汤普森14岁，他的父亲死于重症肌无力，享年58岁。汤普森和他的兄弟戴维森·惠勒（生于1940年6月18日）、詹姆斯（1949年2月2日-1993年3月25日）还有一个同父异母的哥哥詹姆斯·汤普森跟着母亲居住在一起。

为了供养这个四个孩子的大家庭，他的母亲到图书馆去当管理员。

汤普森喜好体育运动，他是路易斯维尔卡斯尔伍德体育俱乐部的棒球球员，由于他的文笔甚好，1952年，汤普森被阿西纳姆文学协会吸纳为会员。

1955年，汤普森因为抢劫而蹲牢狱，也被阿西纳姆文学协会取消会员资格，在刑满释放后，汤普森加入了美国空军。

汤普森最初在德克萨斯州拉克兰空军基地服役，后转移到伊利诺伊州德斯科特空军基地。

1956年，汤普森转移到佛罗里达州埃格林空军基地。1957年，汤普森为佛罗里达州的一家报社写新闻，获得了良好的赞誉，1958年，汤普森退役。

2005年2月，汤普森在美国科罗拉多州皮特金县的家中自杀而逝。同年8月，其骨灰在私人葬礼上以烟花葬形式撒上天空。

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author, regarded as a pioneer of New Journalism along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. He rose to prominence with the book Hell's Angels (1967), for which he lived a year among the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establish the subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a style in which the writer becomes central to, and a participant in, the narrative.

Thompson is widely known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture. It was adapted for film twice, loosely in 1980 in Where the Buffalo Roam and explicitly in 1998 in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. He became known for his intense dislike of Richard Nixon, whom he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973).

Starting in the mid-1970s, Thompson's output declined, as he struggled with the consequences of fame and substance abuse, and he failed to complete several high-profile assignments for Rolling Stone. For much of the late 1980s and early 1990s, he worked as a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write sporadically for outlets including Rolling Stone, Playboy, Esquire, and ESPN.com until the end of his life.

Thompson had a lifelong love for alcohol, drugs, and firearms, and an iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." On February 20, 2005, Thompson fatally shot himself at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. Hari Kunzru wrote, "The true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."

Early life

Hunter Stockton Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library, and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. Journalist Nicholas Lezard of The Guardian stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.

In December 1943, when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.