39 pages • 1 hour read
Hunter S. ThompsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
A journalist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Doctor Gonzo, are driving to Las Vegas from Los Angeles on a Saturday in 1971. They are assigned to cover an off-road vehicle race taking place there, the Mint 400, for a sporting magazine in New York. They have taken with them almost three hundred dollars’ worth of “extremely dangerous drugs” (4), including mescaline, LSD, cocaine, and ether. Some of this they sample on the way, leading Raoul to hallucinate that the sky “was full of what looked like huge bats” (3). Along the way they pick up a young hitchhiker. They explain to him that they are on their way to Las Vegas to find the American Dream. However, this, combined with Raoul talking about the Manson family and manta rays attacking the car, terrifies the hitchhiker, who seems to Raoul like he wants to escape.
By Hunter S. Thompson