This first volume of the Fear and Loathing Letters begins with a high school essay written in 1955 - when Thompson was a wise (perhaps too wise) teenager in Louisville - and takes us through 1967, when the publication of Hell's Angels made the author an international celebrity (and almost resulted in his death). In the intervening years, Thompson's prolific and often profound correspondence gives us an unforgettable vista of the world during the Cold War era as well as an authoritative introduction to the cultural revolution of the sixties. With a vicious eye for detail, a rude wit and a brutal take on any and all pretenders, Thompson's missiles pierce pomposity and rattle the soul. Whether written to his mother, Virginia, or to such luminaries as Charles Kuralt, Philip Graham, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Carey McWilliams, Lyndon Johnson and Joan Baez, the letters represent the evolution of an original, a singular voice defying an era of banality. The Proud Highway is both Hunter Thompson's perception of the sixties and a portrait of an iconoclastic writer who is forced to live as an outsider. In addition, it cements the author's reputation as one of the great journalistic figures of our time.