CRETE MAN PARTNERS WITH OMAHA WRITER TO COMPILE LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST SELLER, ‘CONVERSATIONS WITH HUNTER S. THOMPSON’
Many photographs of the late journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson show him smoking a cigarette, drink in hand.
But as co-editors Beef Torrey of Crete and Kevin Simonson of Omaha looked for a picture for the cover of their book “Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson,” they wanted an image that would strip away the caricature and reveal the real Thompson, an image that would reflect his life and work the way the book does.
“I wanted to pursue his legacy as a writer, not as a caricature,” Torrey said. “We’re trying to preserve a legacy, we’re letting Hunter speak for himself.”
Torrey and Simonson met Thompson, who created gonzo journalism — a highly personal, subjective style of journalism — and wrote “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Hell’s Angels,” in 1990. He was scheduled to speak at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, but he didn’t make it because he was arrested in Colorado that night on allegations of sexual harassment.
Torrey said he and Simonson went to see Thompson in Colorado instead. Simonson interviewed the woman who made the allegations and was instrumental in getting the charges dropped, Torrey said.
Over the years, he said, he and Simonson got to know Thompson, who died in 2005.