Screwjack: A Short Story

Book Description
Hunter S. Thompson's legions of fans have waited a decade for this book. They will not be disappointed. His notorious Screwjack is as salacious, unsettling, and brutally lyrical as it has been rumored to be since the private printing in 1991 of three hundred fine collectors' copies and twenty-six leather-bound presentation copies. Only the first of the three pieces included here -- "Mescalito," published in Thompson's 1990 collection Songs of the Doomed -- has been available to the public, making the trade edition of Screwjack a major publishing event. "We live in a jungle of pending disasters," Thompson warns in "Mescalito," a chronicle of his first mescaline experience and what it sparked in him while he was alone in an L.A. hotel room in February 1969 -- including a bout of paranoia that would have made most people just scream no, once and for all. But for Thompson, along with the downside came a burst of creativity too powerful to ignore. The result is a poetic, perceptive, and wildly funny stream-of-consciousness take on 1969 America as only Hunter S. Thompson could see it. Screwjack just gets weirder with its second offering, "Death of a Poet." As Thompson describes this trailer-park confrontation with the dark side of a deservingly doomed friend: "Whoops, I thought. Welcome to the night train." The heart of the collection lies in its final, title piece, an unnaturally poignant love story. What makes the romantic tale "Screwjack" so touching, for all its queerness, is the aching melancholy in its depiction of the modern man's burden: that "we are doomed. Mama has gone off to Real Estate School ...and after that maybe even to Law School. We will never see her again." Ostensibly written by Raoul Duke, "Screwjack" begins with an editor's note explaining of Thompson's alter ego that "the first few lines contain no warning of the madness and fear and lust that came more and more to plague him and dominate his life...." "I am guilty, Lord," Thompson writes, "but I am also a lover -- and I am one of your best people, as you know; and yea tho I have walked in many strange shadows and acted crazy from time to time and even drooled on many High Priests, I have not been an embarrassment to you...." Nor has Hunter S. Thompson been to American literature. Quite the contrary: What the legendary Gonzo journalist proves with Screwjack is just how brilliant a prose stylist he really is, amid all the hilarity. As Thompson puts it in his introduction, the three stories here "build like Bolero to a faster & wilder climax that will drag the reader relentlessly up a hill, & then drop him off a cliff....That is the Desired Effect".


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In 1991, Hunter S. Thompson published, numbered, and signed just three hundred and twenty-six copies of Screwjack, a slim, thirty-eight-page volume featuring three screwball stories. The books, particularly the twenty-six leather-bound copies (one for each letter of the alphabet), became instant collector's items, and before long, used editions were selling for up to one thousand dollars. Now, with this innovatively designed trade edition, fans can enjoy these much sought-after stories -- and more -- without breaking the bank. A compilation of quintessentially outrageous and extravagant Thompson tales, Screwjack and Other Stories makes for a truly amazing read. "Mesolito", previously published in Songs of the Doomed, is a trippy account of a long wait in a Los Angeles hotel while high on speed and mescaline. "Death of a Poet" relates a visit to a friend's trailer home that takes a number of bizarre twists before ending in violence. "Screwjack", the third and final tale in the collector's edition, shares the gritty details of a sexual escapade between Thompson and his black tomcar. Featuring, as an additional bonus, two new stories that Thompson fans will rush to get their hands on, and published simultaneously with Fear and Loathing in America: The Gonzo Letters Collection, Volume II, Screwjack and Other Stories is a highly anticipated publishing event.


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Thompson published this book in 1991 in a run of only 326 copies, all of which are now are pricey collector's items. Simon & Schuster here reprints that title, which consists of three short stories, in a much easier-to-find and -afford edition. Though not known for his fiction, Thompson has become a cult figure and still manages to attract a good-sized audience. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.


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