[In the following review, Kaiser calls Thompson's The Proud Highway "neither particularly interesting nor particularly well-written."]

In the introduction to this nearly 700-page collection of the letters of Hunter S. Thompson, the novelist William J. Kennedy provides a useful definition of the "gonzo journalism" that made Thompson famous. "It was not lunacy defined," Kennedy writes, "but lunacy imagined: in short, a novel." Unfortunately, in these pages Thompson most often cnfines himself to the mundane facts of his everyday life between 1955 (when he was 17 years old) and 1967 (following the publication of Hell's Angels), and the results are generally underwhelming. Occasionally we see flashes of humor or intelligence, but for vast stretches we are subjected to observations like these: "I have paid my rent for one month. The apartment seemed horrible at first, but I've been working on it most of the day, and it looks a little better now." Most of the more than 200 letters included in this volume—the first of a projected three—are neither particularly interesting nor particularly well written. There is not enough here to sustain the interest of a Hunter S. Thompson fan—only a fanatic would want to plow through all the way to the end.