A Moveable Feast for a Moveable Type Zealot

Although my job and young son leave little time these days for extracurricular reading, books continue to exert such a pull on me that I’ve been haunting the halls of the American Booksellers’ Convention in Anaheim all weekend, well after my reporting assignment was completed.

There are any number of good reasons for wandering for hours--slack-jawed and eyes glazed--through the cavernous convention center.

An old friend who runs an independent bookstore in North Carolina has been camping at the house, so it has been easy to get caught up in the excitement of so many people who care about print in this increasingly electronic age of audio and video. There’s also the cliched awe and envy of most journalists for writers whose work ends up bound between two covers. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing a murder mystery of my own one day up among the publishers’ offerings. But mostly, my enthusiasm is related to an anachronistic romance with the printed word. I love to read for pleasure.

For this first-timer at an ABA gathering, it has been quite a show, especially in the crowded aisles: the normal hype and hustle of any large industry; the bluster and self-important posturing among the heavyweights and superstars; grabby delegates whipping through the hall, snatching up freebies from exhibitors’ counters and stripping the booths like locusts.

The loot--mostly in the form of books, posters and colorful canvas book bags--is certainly tempting, although it appears a bit excessive when piled high on metal baggage carts of the more acquisitive delegates. Alas, the publishers and distributors can give you the books but not the time to read them; the posters, but not the wall space to hang them. And with just two hands, how many book bags can you carry?

Authors, most appearing weary but affable, are displayed in the flesh by their publishers. Curiously, of all the estimable and admirable writers available at ABA press conferences and autograph sessions, the only one I

There was once a fear that Thompson was paving the way for a New Journalism, which would be, in Sylvester Stallone’s words, ‘your worst nightmare.’

wanted to hear was Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who was scheduled to discuss his latest collection, “Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the Eighties.” His book on the 1972 presidential campaign, “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail,” is a classic. I have been saving another, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” unread, waiting for a trip to the gambling mecca to savor the pleasure.

The last time I saw Thompson was more than a decade ago. He was in a standing--then staggering--stupor at Duke University, just about to be dragged off the stage while shouting incoherently. Such behavior notwithstanding, I still think he’s a national treasure, a cross between H.L. Mencken and Darth Vader who speaks for the Dark Side with delicious maliciousness. Thompson’s gift is for writing outrageous, unspeakable truths--essential and empirical truths, rather than literal truths. He is unrepentant and unforgiving of human foibles, including his own.

Yet as many imitators have demonstrated, there is just one Godfather of Gonzo, and for many in journalism that is probably one too many. In fact, there was once a fear that Thompson was paving the way for a New Journalism, which would be, in Sylvester Stallone’s words, “your worst nightmare.”

This hysteria has passed for the most part. Outside of “Spy Magazine,” Doonesbury and the work of Alexander Cockburn, there is little that approaches even the tone of Thompson’s journalism, which now appears weekly in the San Francisco Examiner.

When I went to the ABA press center to check on the time of Thompson’s press conference, his name was crossed out with the word canceled. What reason did he give for not showing, I asked Harriet Blacker, who is handling the press for the ABA. “He didn’t give a reason,” she said.

Oh well, Dr. Thompson, I’ll see you at the bookstore.