Beer and loathing
Friday, May 29, 2009
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When I was first handed Beer and Loathing in Panama City, my first thought was, “Oh great, another wannabe Hunter S. Thompson.” But as I read on, by the end of the first chapter I was wiping tears from the corners of my eyes from laughing so hard. Keith Strausbaugh captures the gonzo style in his own voice.
This short novel, about 82 pages, wrangles a spring break into an almost journal style, breaking the eight day trip up into days to tell the story. Strausbaugh and seven friends leave Virginia Tech. and head down to Panama City in Florida with plans to do nothing but drink all week long. In their success the boys went through days of drunken debauchery.
The voice style of Strausbaugh’s writing is very reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson, using the typical Thompson catch phrases such as “dirty swine” in reference to the cops or squares, and the creatively wordy run-on sentences. The boys cause chaos in the bars, and wreck their hotel room, and typical of Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, they try to escape the damage charges.
This book feels like a modern day attempt at recreating Thompson’s masterpiece of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and it is done well, adding in iPods, cell phones, texting, and of course the use of profound, and just plain crazy run-on metaphors, all with-out the bats and hard drugs.
If you liked Hunter S. Thompson, then Keith Straughsbaugh will tickle your fancy, as long as you read with an open mind. Just don’t be disappointed when there are no bats or a suitcase full of drugs, but there’s plenty of beer to go around.
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