Episode 406 — Juan F. Thompson

Juan F. Thompson is the guest. His new memoir, Stories I Tell Myself: Growing Up with Hunter S. Thompson, is now available from Knopf.  I tore through Juan's book. Read it in like 24 hours. I'm a huge fan of Hunter. He's in my top 5 all-time. I think he's among the funniest writers America has ever produced.  I've read most everything he wrote, and I've read about him at length, but up until a few days ago, I knew little about his son, whom I've always wondered about. What was it like to be him?  It can be easy to think that the child of Hunter Thompson would automatically be some kind of savage hell-raiser, but in fact Juan comes off as the opposite. In reading about him lately, the word "monkish" keeps coming up. I wouldn't go that far, but I will say we didn't snort any cocaine during the interview. Nor did we detonate any homemade explosives, which kind of bums me out.  In the monologue, I talk about Hunter. And I read an excerpt of a review of one of his books.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices