Vonnegut wrote a Foreword in The Joke's Over, a 2006 memoir by illustrator Ralph Steadman chronicling his relationship with the writer Hunter S. Thompson.
Summary[]
Ralph Steadman, 2006
Calling Steadman both a friend and "the most gifted and effective existentialist graphic artist" of the era, Vonnegut commends this memoir about his partnership with another friend, the recently deceased "gun nut and drug abuser and heavy consumer of grain alcohol" Hunter S. Thompson. Until he met Thompson, Vonnegut thought it impossible that someone so intoxicated could even talk on the phone, much less write well. Having constantly revolted against life, Thompson will hopefully now find peace, his ashes having been shot into the sky from a makeshift cannon, as was his own wish.
That event on August 20, 2005 should perhaps now be commemorated as "Substance Abusers' Pride Day", although such people probably wouldn't be inclined to march. Steadman was at the event, practically saying goodbye to a wife, given he and Thompson's "profound and dynamic" partnership. Thompson's writings inspired in Steadman "arguably the most passionately communicative illustrations" of his career, which in turn gave the writings a new element of theatrical entertainment. Like all such relationships, it was love-hate, but mostly love.[1]
- ↑ "Foreword", The Joke's Over, Ralph Steadman, pp. xvii-xviii.