Daily Journal 1/19/26
As you probably know, Hunter S. Thompson is one of my biggest literary influences. If you didn’t know that, it should certainly be apparent after reading THE DAMNED HIGHWAY: FEAR AND LOATHING IN ARKHAM (which I cowrote with Nick Mamatas and which you can get here), and it should have been apparent if you’ve ever read any of my nonfiction books.
Anyway, as you may have heard, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation have reopened an investigation into the death of Hunter S. Thompson, who probably died by suicide.
I don’t know what to think about all that.
I’ve read everything HST ever published, and there’s a thread running through it all that suicide was a probable ending. Indeed, if you are one of the folks who have actually read beyond Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas or The Rum Diary, then you already know that. So, when his suicide was announced back in 2005, it seemed like the most inevitable — and bizarrely normal — conclusion in the world.
But I’ve also read his son’s memoir and his widow’s memoir, and there are a lot of difficult feelings between the two.
I guess what I find most heartbreaking is the state of the literary estate. As an author, you want his estate to get along, and for his widow and his son and his grandson to benefit from his writing for years to come. And as a fan, you want the estate to release things like The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop, which was announced in 2006, had a cover released, and was assigned an ISBN (9780684873176), and had a finished Introduction written by Johnny Depp — but as of January 2026 still has not been published.
You want the estate — particularly the literary estate of a writer of this magnitude — to get along and benefit. Perhaps selfishly so that we can benefit, too.
It’s a writer’s worst nightmare, if the writer is the type to sit and brood over their legacy. And in our corner of the industry, there are so many now-dead horror writers whose literary estates are an absolute tire fire. So many deceased authors whose stuff sits in limbo because no one knows who owns the rights, or the surviving family members have mismanaged it, or worse, just don’t care.
I’ve preached it before and I’ll preach it until the day I die — if you are a writer, plan your literary estate today. Even if you’ve only sold two short stories, have a plan for who benefits those stories after you are gone. Put it in writing, even if it’s just something as simple as doing one of those online will things and getting it notarized. Even that is better than nothing.