Hi folks,

Really enjoyed reading this overview of how sports shaped Hunter as a writer. I had a chat with the author Bill Shea and he included a quote of mine in the piece.

“One longtime observer of Thompson’s career is Rory Patrick Feehan, a gonzo scholar who may be the only person in the world with a doctorate (from Ireland’s University of Limerick) focused on Thompson.

“The influence of his sports writing background is evident across his entire oeuvre, fostering his love of action verbs and rollicking energy charged narratives that pulled you into the story,” Feehan wrote of Thompson in an email. “Much of that skill was honed during his military days when he had to make even the dullest football game sound exciting, not to say the least for his reporting on bowling in Puerto Rico. It also transferred particularly well to his political journalism – he essentially saw it as a form of sports and wrote about the campaign trail as though it were football season. Rival candidates, underhand tactics and killer blows in the final stretch – that all began with Hunter’s love of sports.””

You can read the full article here 

Rory