In 1980, Hunter S. Thompson was tempted bent on Hawaii by Running publication to cover the Honolulu Marathon– a “great chance for a getaway,” as his appointing editor placed it, with all expenses paid and an exceptional cost. Yet as practically everyone who has actually ever listened to the name Seeker S. Thompson knew, this would certainly not be an uncomplicated sports tale. With his sweaty, frenzied and pharmacological lens, and with the aid of illustrations from long time partner Ralph Steadman, Thompson turned it into a vast exploration through Hawaiian folklore, colonial background and the emerging culture of health-optimization– “body-nazis,” Thompson called them. As a meaningful publication attribute, the tale never ever rather worked as a result of his expanding dependence on alcohol and drugs. His time in Hawaii was developed into The Curse of Lono , a 1983 book that oddly excerpted Mark Twain and The Last Voyage of Captain James Cook by Richard Hough. It was improperly obtained, with one doubter at Kirkus Reviews concluding that Thompson was “just a sometimes enjoyable Haole and usually unbearable wise-ass.” A passage appeared in the December 1983 problem of Playboy , in spite of his editor battling to piece it together and noting the degeneration of his work It was later on republished in 2005 with a limited run of only 1, 000 copies signed by Steadman. Now, The Curse of Lono is back with a new reprint by Simon & Schuster , featuring an existing introduction by starlet Natasha Lyonne. It’s been 43 years given that guide’s launch, and more than 20 years since Thompson’s fatality in 2005, so Menstruation of Lono really feels currently like a covert shard of Thompson’s total collection, heated by fond memories. Does he still review as periodically amusing and usually unbearable? Absolutely. However any individual analysis Thompson today likes him especially for that.
Below is Lyonne’s introduction, paired with an option of Steadman’s original images. The Curse of Lono is available on Oct. 20
I was sixteen, requiring time off from college to do a Woody Allen motion picture, with a tutor hellbent on providing me an introductory to surrealism. It was the sort of education where whatever bled together: books, movies, folklore. I was happy for it. I learned that mayhem can have authorship. Or, at the very least, a mouth piece.
Someplace on that particular reading listing, in between Iceberg Slim and Hermann Hesse, was Hunter S. Thompson. The more I check out of his job, the less he felt like a far-off literary number and more a regularity you could tune right into if you were already inclined by doing this. I grew up in a city where you establish an antenna for turmoil. You can tune it for survival, or you can yank it out of your head and use it as a dowsing pole to direct yourself towards the important things you possibly should stay clear of. We both know what Hunter performed with his. In those early days, it wasn’t that I intended to resemble him so much as obtain authorization: to treat life as material, to let it obtain unpleasant and allow it obtain close.
In The Curse of Lono , Seeker and Ralph were never ever there for the task, not actually. The marathon was just a free flight. What they adjusted their antennae for was the slip: the minute when the tale would fall down and something weirder would certainly take control of. When I’m asked about my very own job, I often speak about a third area. A role, a manufacturing, a shared moment where all of us concur it’s genuine and select to reside in it for some time. I such as that room to be among development and wit– the sort of tough laughing that moves you off the sinking ship.
For Hunter, humor was typically the start to disaster. That may be the truest kind of journalism I can think about. Life, the whole setup, is unique. The fantastic planetary joke is that regardless of what we do, what we obtain or shed, all of it finishes the same way. You have to make the joke prior to the floor befalls.
Hunter’s third area was a refuge from fact and the most focused version of it. There is an extra of life in this book– all his books. Yet you knew that already: your antenna brought you right here.– Natasha Lyonne
Excerpted from Menstruation OF LONO by Seeker S. Thompson. Copyright 2026 © by Simon & Schuster. Reprinted by authorization of Simon & Schuster, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LL C
