The Joke's Over

In the Spring of 1970, Ralph Steadman went to America in search of work and found more than he bargained for. In Kentucky to cover the Derby, he met a former Hells Angel called Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson wrote later: 'The rest of the day blurs into madness. The rest of that night too. And all the next day and night. Such horrible things occurred that I can't bring myself even to think about them now, much less put them down in print. Steadman was lucky to get out of Louisville without serious injuries, and I was lucky to get out at all.'

That meeting resulted nevertheless in a working relationship and a friendship that lasted for more than thirty years.

In 'The Joke's Over', Ralph Steadman tells the story of this remarkable collaboration, which documented the turbulent years of the Civil Rights movement, Nixon and Watergate, and the decay of the American Dream. It is also the story of an unusual friendship, of both unique understanding and of extraordinary betrayals.

Few people knew Thompson as well as Ralph Steadman did. In this unique memoir, elegiac, bizarre and hilarious, Steadman tells his story for the first time, the story--in words and pictures--of Ralph and Hunter, a great British original on a great American original, Butch and Sundance on acid...