That you are abandoning anyone, or that you are doing a disservice to other groups. You can do both, you know . And its important to focus on yourself sometimes. And im not sure that there is one answer. A lot of the things that were talking about sort of go toward this point. There may not be a solution that allows you to strike the balance that you want, but that you can invest and engage in all kinds of different struggles and work toward making things more equal. And you are, if youre asking these questions, youre already doing the work of balancing, right . If youre already considering how does a voice are not get how does my voice not get drowned out, how do i work for other people but not let my work for other people in some way silence or diminish my own role here, these are questions that i nate t these are questions that resinate social movements that are in process right now. Youre already doing a lot of re alr i regret that theres no time to address but i love the fact that one of the first identifiers that you used was penocostal. [laughter] one of the many black religions and how do you even in church find a voice as a woman in penecostal context. God bless you. Thank you. With that, we are going to wrap it up on behalf of the lip fest, i would like to think all of the authors. Will all be signing books right outside. Be sure to listen to the pod cast and chick out printersrowlit. Org. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] that concludes our live coverage from the printers row lit fest in chicago. We will be back live on sunday. Now, if you missed any of the events covered today they will all be aired beginning at midnight eastern. [inaudible conversations] cspan created by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Good evening, everyone, welcome to book people. Thank you very much. This evening we are pleased to have with us author juan s thompson. He is here to discuss his story, he share it is story of his father, larger than life literary figure and relationship as they got to know each other over the course of 41 years. Thompson is in conversation with bestselling author brinkley. Ladies and gentlemen, please join us in welcoming thompson and brinkley. [applause] we want to welcome juan to austin. Hes a longtime friend and robin thompson. Where is robin . Robin has family here in town and kin folk live here. Im here because i edited thompsons letter called the proud highway, if youre lonely in america, Rolling Stone cover story about him when he died and, you know, i constantly try to promote hunter as one of the Great American novelist, so we are going to get to talk about some of hunters books, but i wanted to begin by asking you, juan, with a reading you suggested . Sure, i would add to your intersection that you were also a big friend of hunters for many years. So what i would like to do is read the preface which sums up what i was trying to do and what i was not trying to do and then read a couple of letters, one letter that hunter wrote to me and another i wrote to him when i was going off to college. Preface. This is a memoir, not a biography. Highly subjective and relying memoir of how my father and i got to know each other for 41 years until his suicide in 2005. It is filled with exaggerations, fault ri regulations, omissions and also contains a lot of truth about my father and me, more truth than false hoodz, i think. If if im deceiving you, im deceiving myself as well. All i have a memory and memory is a treacherous thing. It is not subjective and constantly revised and edited to suit our needs and desires and yet our lives and ie tenties are built upon memories and draw conclusions about our lives and the people in them, so we do the best we can. Knowing we are fooling ourselves a good part of the time. We go forward in spite of it. I go forward in spite of it. These are the stories i tell myself. Thomas was a complex man, far too complex for me to know and understand. He was famous, almost worship in some circles, unknown to others and brilliant and grand master and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He was an alcoholic and drug, sometimes dangerous charismatic, idealist sensitive man with a deep and powerful sense of justice. Most important to me he was my father and i was his son. Good or bad, weak or strong, alive or dead, our fathers are with us. This is a story of how my father and i went very far away from each other and over 25 years managed to find our way back before it was too late. When i was 18i spent a week and it was just he and i really, just he and i doing stuff and it went surprisingly well. As i was getting on a plane to get to boston hunter gave me a letter and told me to read it on flight. Dear, juan, okay, youre off and things seemed generally under control on your end, anyway, im still juggling maddens on this end and i never heard a rumor that the end might be in sight. Its a clear life, for sure but at least it keeps me in shape more or less. Here are valid 50dollar checks which will keep you enough to get a fix on things, use to open your own bank account in boston and also call me tonight to confirm your safe arrival. Dont forget to do this tonight. The sheepskin jacket st a present from layla. Call your adviser from the Denver Airport and say youll be late for dinner but youll meet him tonight. Ask him the best way to get to the airport and tell him you are very concerned that your application for the School Newspaper didnt get there on time. Can i help you straighten out the confusion, he can, but you have to get serious about it right away. And so much for advice and logistics, im not worried about you but i am interested and i want to know whats happening, send me your phone number and po address, lets talk on the phone as often if youd like it specially for the first few weeks which almost certainly will be nervous. Or maybe not but if they are dont worry. Weve dealt with the burger before and what we know he cant stance a sense humor. I remember the naked and afraid books. I will hand it it after that and we will both get seemingly rich. Take my word for it. Why fool around with tangents. All you need is a typewriter and a few reames of paper. I had a good time and as always proud of you. Very few secrets go out in the world as well armed as you are. I will keep after ruben for the thousand dollars he owes you for technical work, he says he has a job next summer but so do i and mine is a lot fatter, 44 books, rich and famous, no problem. Any well, we had a wonderful time with davis and his family last year and hopefully we can do it again so lets keep in mind and plan for it. We still have a ways to go before we can act like good friends and yell at each other but we are doing pretty well considering the fair amount of time we actually put into it. Youre a good person and i love you for that as much because youre my son or because youre about to be rich and pay my expenses. By 1984 we will be making 44,000 a month and even buffet will be standing a line to get our autograph. Fine investment with huge returns. Right, yes, lets do it. Love, h. Sometimes apparently whord air events are objects encapsulate vast realities and this is one. It is a letter i had been waiting for my whole life, a promise of an engaged father who gives advice, encouragement. Promises adventure and talks of getting together soon. All of a sudden i had a father again. How could i forgotten this letter . However, we moved too fast for the kind of intimacy that both wished for but did not yet exist. Hunter, yes, how baffle baffling this is. Thankfully he doesnt show miserable despairing form. But i know hes there. Other times hes not so subtle, he and i walk side by side completely alone. So close i can smell the tears, hopelessness of this endover. He shows me memory, better times, deadly and very painful. And then he retreats, im reprieved. He never lets me forget that hes there, though devious. Its true, im not like the others. Im quiet, weird, solitary. What can i say, im sure there are among 5,000 students at least 100 people who i can make friends but they are as invisible as i am, fraternity, hip, cute, intelligent people, unfortunately ive been taught not to show it. The problem lies in socializing. People talk a certain way, asked a certain way, do certainly things that are found socially acceptable. One makes friends, with time friends use their masks less and less but its so cheap and repulsive so i take the alternative and retreat becoming quiet and unsociable waiting to meet someone like me. I tried calling you tonight, no answer. Youre right about the sense of humor. Unfortunately humor seems so far away when i most need it. Ive made a sign, naked and alone which im putting on a wall. Perhaps the east isnt a place for me. Nevertheless i will definitely plan to make a fair judgment. I found his notes that he had scrawled on my letter. Yeah, theyre all gay like me. Why dont they get it . No problem will clear this problem but only postpone it for 1,500 a month. [laughter] ive already paid 5,000, another one thousand due october 1st, can sandi take me back to court if i dont pay . So what, hell be in the village by then. A friend of his informed him that he was gay and going to new york city to be with his people. Hunter wrote that their friendship petered out after a few gettogethers not because hostility to gays but different interests and social circles. He finished with this. So i figured i could strikeout in the fog and see what came of it. Not of my doctorates gave me wisdom and i think i should know what it is. Tell me. I had written him two long letters explaining how lonely and unhappy i was and his reaction was to tell me that i wasnt being clear and to state the real problem. I had asked my father whose previous letter had been supporting and welcoming of communication for help or understanding and now hes of no help at all. In fact, the letter brought up uncomfortable questions. Did my father think i was gay. Was he trying to say that we would drift apart if we were. What is he trying to say. Did he understand me at all. Clearly, he could not help me. The first letter from hunter was beautiful wishful thinking, he wanted to believe we had that kind of relationship as did i. We wanted to believe we could start over from that moment and he could be the father he and i both wanted them to be. My letters to him exploded that illusion and now i see he had no idea how to handle this kind of appeal from me. He could give practical advice, if i had asked him for help getting a job, getting a car, getting an interview, an article in the student paper, that he could have handled. But a cry of loneliness and of darkness, that he can could not handle. [applause] juan, how did things end up working out . One year and i came back to the west where i belonged. And you live in denver now . Yes. I thought we would start by the word ganzo, everybody talks about gonzo this and gonzo that and hunters being the person who really made that word popular and comes from journalism. What does it mean to you gonzo . And what do you think hunter means by it . Well, when i think of gonzo journalism, what i dont think of or what i prefer not to think of is the the caricature of the man drinking too much, out of control. I think what he meant was an approach, an approach at journalism where he was trying to to get an essential truth in an unconventional way through exaggeration, you know, humor and engaging stories as well as some of the rage and hyperbole. He was wasnt writing for entertainment u maltly, he was trying to make a point. And i think thats the nut of it. Is there a style that you recommend read or you still find humorous and insightful . Yeah, one is obi tu obi tu [laughter] i dont know if i will ever told you this about it, but hunter started writing in new orleans. He came down and visited me and i was at the university of new Orleans Young history professor and steven am bros who had written biography of nixon was there. And i thought was an amazing thing to get ambrose. He spoke and then he was hanging around for like four days and then nixon suddenly died and hunter felt a lot of pressure writing that. He went back to hl macon and just hunter felt the pressure that gone after nixon all of these times but he also felt kind of sad because he lost his enemy. [laughter] sort of an odd feeling. We always knew who the guy i could punch. Now my foil is sort of disappearing. He was going around a bar on bar saying to people, in a minuteon died, you want acid, nixon died. [laughter] he delivered. Its not easy, its a piece that circulates a lot. This may be the most funny and humorous and insightful obituary somebody you dont like including dumping his body in a canal. [laughter] its very funny vicious piece of writing. The city is start to go embrace him as one of the their city heros, but i dont think i dont think hunter felt the same way. I think he was i think he was glad to leave. It was very conservative, very, you know, oppressive environment where he was just not welcomed. He was thrown out of town and i think he appreciate it had recognition he got back in the mid90s when a fellow organized a tribute, but i dont think he i dont think he felt a longing for home. I mean, he left kentucky and he went to new york, california, he ended up in colorado because he wanted freedom. He wanted to be free of those social constraints. I i dont think he felt a real tied to kentucky. Remember we had an event with johnny depp and warren and many others who was hunter coming back home and they gave him the key to the city and he couldnt believe it because people say you should never give hunter a key to anything. [laughter] a mayor of louisville, a friend of hunters, end up writing about great piece about louisville, which is the kentucky derby. [laughter] what about hunter and the derby, what do you think about that piece in its role in hunters literary work . Oh, i think thats i think thats when i think about hunters writing theres i think most underappreciated book ishells angels which was written, a pregonzo, definitely much more conventionial style of writing and then theres the derby article and it was the before and after and i think what happened there was he discovered his voice that there was this rawness, this raw power that he didnt know he had and from what i understand it was sort of in a desperation and poured out and i think he realized, wow, this is something totally new and decided to, instead of rejecting it as a weird admiration, he said theres something here, im going to go with this. It is a supporting event, the kentucky derby, if youre loading on the super bowl, went to cover the fitness crazy of jogging and marathon running that was going on but he constantly cared about sports and wanted to be a Sports Writer. Can you reflect hunter and sports in general . He loved sports. I mean, well some sports, basketball, football, despised baseball. But that was that was a big part of his life and growing up, being in sports and being an athlete was important to him and the betting, constantly betting, irresponsibly large sums of money. But its interesting reading about the early letters he was like, im going to be a Sports Writer and those later letters, some of those she members better than i do when hes ridiculing the style, sports writing, repetitive formlaic stuff. Also growing up in louisville was the virginia and tell us about virginia thompson, hunters mother, what was virginia like, how did she raise the thompson boys . You have to be careful here. So hunters dad died when he was about 17, i think. And he had grew up in a middleclass family. His dad was an agent and and his dad died suddenly and the whole world change. His mother had to go back to work. She began drinking rather heavily for some years and that was a very difficult time. And he ended up in and then he was as a result of arrest and being thrown under the bus by wealth friends he was driven out of town and his mother became a librarian. I think books were around him and he owes her a lot for, you know, always kind of being she would babysit him sate sitting in the room of the Public Library in louisville. Here are the cover of stories i tell myself. There is your dad with the cigarette and glasses and theres one as a little boy, what was the the you mentioned alcohol and drugs, did it have an adverse effect on you, did it make you not care . Tell us about living somebody that was a proud dopefene. As a kid it is hard to sort out what was just hunter and how much did drugs and alcohol have to do with it and even now im not sure i could say. What i do know that hunter was a really difficult foreign live with and i did not i didnt want to be like him, you know, specially there were really tough times when i was 11, 12, 13 when my parents were going through a divorce. He was a bastard and i really did not want to be like him, you know, the craziness, unpredictability, the rage, that was that was really difficult. And did it make you less incline to do drugs of a child of somebody, or the downside of it . Yeah, it seems that a part of hunters character was he liked to see how far he could go without totally losing control and i totally rejected that. I was like, no, i do not want to be that kind of person. I dont want to have a life of chaos and so, you know, where he was smoking and drinking by the time he was like 14 or 15, you know, i was not quite straight edge but, you know, control, control, you know, drink a little bit but not too much, drugs, it was kind of funny, i actually got through my drug experimentation by 17. I was like, okay, identify done that, i can move on now. [laughter] in the book you have a lot of wonderful vingettes and i will throw a couple of names at you and you can give me your recollection. What was your relationship with buffet like . I dont know exactly how they met but they became friends really before buffet became, you know, really popular and one night just released an album and go sailing in the caribbean, bahamas and he said, why dont you take juan with you and i was 13 at the time, all right, youre going sailing with buffet for a month. [laughter] okay. And it was a wonderful thing. He was so different from hunter in so many ways that to be with someone who is calm yeah, i mean, calm and friendly and attentive, he really he was sort of a surrogate father figure there for a while and was important and later realized that he and hunter worked out and hunter wanted me to have that break specially because they were going through the divorce. Lived in key west for a while and if you buffet was like to recognize you helped discover him. It brings me to hunter music, Rolling Stone, whats hunters relationship with the founder of Rolling Stone, what was their relationship like . Id say two opposing things. One is really a deep an abiding love. They really, really i think cared very much for each other and then the other part of that was i dont know who said it, it was the worlds worst employee working for the worlds worst boss. [laughter] i think it was a extremely difficult relationship. Hunter was not going to be an employee. He just wasnt going to do it but i think it was very fruitful and when i think about hunters success, he was really, i think, very fortunate to come, that him and young met up at the time because there was actually an opening for someone, for, you know, wild style of writing which i dont think i dont know if theres an opening for that now in such, you know, broadway h. But Rolling Stone was a magazine, yeah, we are ready for this and i think it turned out to be a Great Partnership for them both. Do you ever think right now god, i wish dad was around, right about donald trump . Absolutely. I dont think if he could have handled it. [laughter] i think he would have been just enraged and appalled by the whole the whole election process. What about johnny depp . What was hunters relationship like with him and your take on it . So johnny, when he was cast in las vegas, johnny decided to live with hunter for four months, he lived in the basement and became hunters double and they went everywhere together and, you know, hunter, shaved his head, it was like they had a lot of fun and johnny really respected hunter a lot and i think he kind of look looked at hunter as a kind of father figure, you know. When hunter died, i think it came through you, youknow, that johnny wanted to convey what can i do, what can i do and he ended up paying for the entire funeral, which was a lot of money and quite spectacular. I think hunter would have been extremely pleased with how it came out. What was so remarkable is he didnt want any credit and he wanted to be in the background. This was about hunter. This was not about him. I was so impressed by that, that sincerity and generosity. Do you think depp called character iks and manners . Yes, very well. I can close my eyes and the voice, mannerisms, god, he nailed. Creepy. Bill murray played hunter. I was a lot younger than. I just remember this odd, odd fellow. [laughter] but he was strange but he was he was very friendly and he had time for me, youre kind of interesting, lets talk whereas some other people might have been, its a kid, i dont have time for that. He was i dont know how to describe it, a very interesting, unusual person. What about Jack Nicholson who never played hunter but they were quite a duo, great friends, do you remember jack at all . I only met him a couple of times but he and hunter were quite close for a long time because jack spent a lot of time in aspen. I remember after hunter committed suicide at the funeral nicholson did drawings of hunter for people that he actually drew and then signed it for them. A nice little art piece that he did. Last one, what about ralph stedman, but also other projects, whats ralph like . Ralph, i mean, i think ralph i must have first met him when he came to visit hunter in the aerial 70s, probably right after las vegas and he was the most delightful and kind and really brilliant, as an artist hes just incredible but im still in touch with him and hes just the thing about ralph he has such a big heart. He is in spite of hes 80 years old now, long and interesting life but he still has this childlike sense of generosity and heart. I think hes kind of like young, very bumpy friendship, deep respect but also this constant, like bickering and i dont know what that was about, jealousy or what it was, but i think hunter had that with a lot of people. He drew him as a cartoon character and gary, did you ever have a feel about hunter he just hated it. He tried to sue him. He wanted to find a iowa of getting his information. [laughter] it was creepy because they used my name. I think the worst part is he was powerless. Before we open it up to questions to audience, we mentioned the nickolson obituary. It will be its 50th anniversary next year 2017 and he did fare and loving in las vegas and in campaign 72, those three books are considered classics now. When did you become aware that your dad was, you know, writing classic books that were, you know, not just books of the moment or Rolling Stone pieces, but works that would be, you know, being celebrated and read this many decades later . Its been a slow revelation and very much i mean, as part of doing these readings. I think first of all, at hunters death with the outpouring of, you know, sympathy and the fact that so many people talked about how hunter changed it changed their lives in some way and that it wasnt his, you know, it wasnt the craziness and the alcohol and drugs that touched people, it was his writing and as ive been doing these readings, i hear the same thing and whats just so amazing is how is how he continues to be inspiring to, you know, to not only his generation, you know, my generation, but, you know, the next generation. His influence continues to pass down and its its a wonderful thing to see. He wasnt just a period writer. Finally, you have a son, will, and hes getting ready to go to st. Johns in santa fe, the Great Books Program is incredible, did you learn whats that like you being a father now, is it giving you a little bit more sympathy, the difficulties of being a good father . Yes, yes. And to see the difficulty that i had in trying to connect with hunter as trying to find some way to communicate or connect is something, you know, i can see the same, the same kind of issue with my son and he and i are more alike than hunter and i, but still, i think this must be something that some fathers and sons deal with at some point, all right, once you move beyond being the parent and focused on child care on feeding the school and the bedtime and homework, all that stuff, now its just two people, two people, you are tied by this tremendous amount of experience and, you know, so much in common and yet, youre very different people and it has been helpful to think, all right, this might just be a part of being part of being a father, you know, and not something that was unique to just hunter and i. Very good. I would like to open it up for some questions from the audience. Weve got some and i wont forget you guys back there. But lets start, sir, right here in the front. There was a sports caster that talked about monica when she came back from her stabbing and he said about her that she she only can give what she has to get. And thats a quote thats resinated with my father and so i wondered, does that resinate at all with you about your father that he can only give what he needs . And thats something thats sort of something that resinates with me about my father, he could only give what he actually needed himself and thats the question. Okay, juan. Its not im not feeling itses no resinating, but what comes to mind, though, is that he was hunter he was really trying to connect with me. He was born in 1936 and he was a very different being a man and a father was something very different than what it is now. So there wasnt expectation that he was going to be a hands on dad but it was very important and he wanted to make a connection with me and i wanted to make a connection with him and two thoughts, one is that it was very important that we each kept trying even though we were like, you know, kept that missing and that would have eventually came down to for me was when i realized, its not going to be the way i would like it to be and so we found another way and that was and that was good. But it was really important to say, all right, hes not going to be the newage dad, you know. He doesnt have to be and we found a connection, a different kind of connection. Other questions . Yes, sir. Will the rest of your life be to impact your father . God, i hope not. [laughter] are you aware of the gonzo published in england dedicate today your father . No. Its a block that deals forms and dedicate art done by your father. I would like to check that out. Hes very popular in great britain. Very beloved there. On the way back. Theyre taping this so if you could speak into it. So if you were to say in a sentence or so what do you believe your fathers montra, the idea of being gonzo or separate . God, montra, jeez, when it gets going. Actually kind of like a ton of them but i dont know i could boil it down to one. These werent his words, but i would say tell the truth was very important to him but to do it in find his own way to do that, not trying to follow anyone elses recipe. Okay. Yes, sir. Juan, could you tell us a couple of authors that you particularly like . Yes, some just came off the top of my head, jim harrison who just died a couple of months ago. He was just fantastic. And i was an english major so some of the classics, joseph conrad, George Elliot and they tend to be probably more classical to my taste but those are the few. First of all,i notice that had you spoke in a quiet 12yearold when you were between sandy. What did you call your parents and did you inhereto the quiet gentle voice from your mother sandy or is that a result of watching them have their arguments . [laughter] i called them hunter and sandy and a lot of people asked why, and i really think thats what he wanted to be called. You know when youre a parent and youre talking to a child, you know, its daddy. Youre the one who tells them what your name is and i think hunter decided no that its not going hunter, its not going to be dad. And i think part of that was it was partially him and partially the times that he was the late 60s, 70s were times for the kind of culture that he was part of like rejecting everything, everything that their parents believed them and had raised them to believe, throw it out. Everything and that very much applied to parenting as well. And when i was in my 20s i think i tried telling him dad twice and [laughter] it doesnt feel right. Doesnt feel right. Yes, maam, over here. So im interested in the writing of the book, with there any surprises about your dad and were there any surprises in yourself . Some of the surprising things were some of the letters that i found. Like a letter i read. I cant believe that i had just forgotten about that letter, quite a letter. And there were other letters i found where he talks about how hes going to try to pay for my College Tuition but he didnt want me to know about it, he didnt want me to know about the stress he was under. And that was really surprising and touching, you know. It seemed out of character. As long as im happy, by god, he would let everybody know it. Surprises for myself, id say one of the surprises has been that writing is actually something that i want to continue to do which has been a difficult thing to acknowledge because who wants to compete, who wants to be judged, compared to, you know, a parent in the same area, so its been something that ive avoided, like, i dont really want to do that but turns out, you know what, i actually do. Very good. And we will do a couple more. Im sorry theyre all kind of scattered around but go ahead over there, if we could. My father was a bastard and an alcoholic. Your father was . Sorry. No, thats fine and having a bastard alcoholic father found intimates moments were rare and thus more impactful and i was cur use if you had one particular moment as a child in which he relayed something to you, perhaps alcoholics call it a moment of clarity that resinates particularly formed you that helpful . You know, what you say rings so true. Unlike my relationship with my son, ive been there the whole time and so there are just thousands of individual moments with my dad. There just arent that many
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