My Wild, Drug-Addled Days Working for Hunter S. Thompson

By Larry Getlen

In the new novel “Gonzo Girl,” out Tuesday, the lead character is a 22-year-old aspiring novelist who shoots a .22-caliber gun at targets with the faces of Ronald Reagan and Marilyn Monroe while tripping on LSD, all with a famous author named Walker Reade — whom she met just days earlier.
The roman à clef is based on the five months author Cheryl Della Pietra spent in 1992 as the assistant to wild-man journalist Hunter S. Thompson. (She estimates the book is about 60 percent true.) Her job was to ensure, by any means necessary, that Thompson got at least one page of writing done everyday, usually after 2 a.m.

Those means included doing tons of drugs with him whenever he wanted — which was always.
One time, the pair were pulled over by police while tripping on mushrooms that had been baked in a chocolate cake. As Thompson had an obsession with weapons, there were firearms in the car.
“The police pulled us over, and I was like, oh my god, I’m about to get arrested,” says Della Pietra, now a freelance copy editor for US Weekly. (They didn’t get arrested.)

“It was very movielike — terrifying and thrilling. I’m with this icon, and there was a .44 Magnum in the back of the car under a blanket. After the cops leave, he sets up this exploding target on a tree, and I’m shooting a .44 Magnum with Hunter S. Thompson while I’m ’shrooming.”

Della Pietra heard about the assistant position through a friend who worked at Rolling Stone, the magazine for which Thompson regularly wrote. After writing Thompson a letter, she received a phone call from the “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” icon at 3 a.m. He told her: “Get on a plane tomorrow and we’ll see how things go.”

At Thompson’s Woody Creek, Colo., ranch, Della Pietra was subjected to a three-day “trial period,” which was Thompson’s test to see if she could keep up with his ravenous appetite for intoxicants. The incident with the police occurred during this time. She passed the test, though the real trials were yet to come.

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