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“A feast for the Gonzo soul” – Marty Flynn
This book was born out of my relationship with Hunter Thompson over many years. It covers the first four. The relationship started in Random House when one of my bosses, Jim Silberman, asked me to take over Hunter’s Hell’s Angels manuscript, copy edit it and be the go-between – his pathway up to Jim at the top of the chain. I was to keep Hunter happy by catering to his every concern.
Hunter knew nothing about me. But he immediately secured a permit to call me at will. Then for months I was on the job at home and off. I called the arrangement – of unlimited phone calls – something like that in You’ve Got Mail, before there was personal internet. Hell’s Angels was editor Jim Silberman’s acquisition by an unknown author out in San Francisco, whom Jim traveled coast to coast to meet. He secured the book, Hunter Thompson’s first (while it was half written in manuscript), from its intended paperback publisher, Ballantine. Signed and sealed the deal. And we were off to the races.
Post-Holiday Sale: Kindle $3.99; iPad (US), iPad (British) $5.99. Nook $5.99!
NEW from the San Francisco/Sacramento Book Review:
”While the job at Random House did offer her the opportunity to meet a lot of writers and famous people, it is Hunter that became her secret office romance. The two start a correspondence within letters and long-distance phone calls that morphs from a concealed passion into a long-term friendship. Keep This Quiet! is a book about a woman’s life and her loves, determination, and discovery.
“. . . A great deal of the book is personal letters from Hunter to Margaret, with Margaret’s inside emotions written in the theoretical margins. Harrell is an excellent storyteller, in a story that is never about the narrative, but about the real people. Every person in the book is bold and well defined; and I especially liked the notes where Harrell backs up her story with proof.”
From Ron Whitehead:
“KEEP THIS QUIET! a memoir: My Relationship with Hunter S. Thompson, Milton Klonsky, and Jan Mensaert by Margaret A. Harrell is a masterpiece! I never expected to say that about a memoir yet as I say it memories of so many other great works of creative non-fiction autobiographies memoirs etc start flooding in, works by Mark Twain and Walt Whitman and Frederick Douglass and Knut Hamsun and Marcel Proust and Cora Sandel and James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway and Zora Neale Hurston and Thomas Merton and Jack Kerouac and David Amram and Hunter S. Thompson and Diane di Prima and Bob Dylan and well the list is endless. And I see clearly that Margaret A. Harrell’s KEEP THIS QUIET! a memoir stands shoulder to shoulder with the greatest works of alltime. And I hear that volume 2 is on the way. How fortunate we are! Bravo Margaret A. Harrell! Thank You!!!”
Ron Whitehead, outlaw poet and damn proud to be
Author of numerous books of poetry and DVDs, also presently Kentucky’s Ambassador to Estonia. Check it out.
I hesitated to post the Ron Whitehead review right on the front page because it was so flattering, but then someone said, “If it were me, I’d run a banner headline.”
In this website you will become familiar with some of the people and events surrounding Keep This Quiet! I hope you will rush out to buy the book – experience the live words of Hunter Thompson again and relive some of his finest moments, of which he had so many – stories from when he wasn’t yet famous. But like Paul Kemp in The Rum Diary, he meant to be an important spokesman. He had already written The Rum Diary in draft. But nothing in book form of his was in print. And then came Hell’s Angels, a best seller. Keep This Quiet! walks with Hunter Thompson as he enters the wide arena in which he became a legend. I hope this new Hunter Thompson book will find a place in your heart, as Hunter did in mine. And if you like it, don’t forget to write a review!
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