Rolling Stone Excerpt of Trudeau & Doonesbury: A Biography
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Rolling Stone has published an excerpt of the upcoming biography Trudeau & Doonesbury: A Biography (non-paywall link). The subtitle of the article would make me read it, even if I wasn’t already interested: “How cartoonist Garry Trudeau embraced the counter-culture, became a Rolling Stone writer, and pissed off Hunter S. Thompson so much that the gonzo journalist mailed him an envelope with nothing but used toilet paper.”
The excerpt explains how the Doonesbury character Uncle Duke’s similarity to Hunter S. Thompson and how it wasn’t appreciated.
But Thompson always hated Trudeau’s attempt to caricature him for his own narrative ends. Though the pair never met, Thompson repeatedly threatened the cartoonist. And he once sent Trudeau an envelope containing nothing but used toilet paper. Thompson also claimed that the popularity of his namesake caused irreparable harm to his career. In the fall of 1978, when he was mining the college lecture circuit “just for cocaine money,” Thompson told a Maine paper that he wanted to exact vengeance on Trudeau: “I doubt if there’s anyone here who wants to be a comic strip character. It has made it almost impossible for me to work as a political journalist.” But even close friends of Thompson thought the fiery journalist was exaggerating. When asked by Thompson to sue Trudeau, his own lawyer John Clancy quipped, “You should be grateful. The guy makes you out to be friendly and nice, basically. You’re not.”
Book comes out next week. If purchasing, please support your local independent bookstores.
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