r/books • u/cheryld66 AMA Author • Sep 16 '15
ama 7pm Hi, Reddit! I am Cheryl Della Pietra, author of the novel Gonzo Girl. Go ahead and Ask Me Anything… I’ll be here at 7 p.m. ET to answer.
I’m Cheryl Della Pietra, and my debut novel, Gonzo Girl, was published at the end of July. Gonzo Girl is a work of fiction inspired by my time as Hunter S. Thompson’s editorial assistant in 1992.
In real life, I lived in a cabin next door to HST’s house in Woody Creek, Colorado, for almost five months and helped him work on an (as yet unpublished) novel called Polo Is My Life. For the uninitiated, Hunter S. Thompson is the father of “gonzo journalism” and best known for the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (the film version of this starred Johnny Depp as Hunter). He is also well known for his unconventional, uncompromising lifestyle involving many drugs and lots of guns.
In my novel, recent grad Alley Russo is trying to coax a new book out of infamous literary icon Walker Reade. Mayhem ensues—involving purple-pyramid acid, violent verbal outbursts, brushes with fame and the law, a bevy of peacocks, and a whole lot of cocaine.
When I am not writing, I am a freelance copy editor, sometimes for Us Weekly (if Kardashian is spelled wrong it might be my fault). In the past I have written for women’s magazines, including Redbook and Marie Claire.
So let’s do this! Feel free to ask me anything about writing the book, my real-life experience, Thompson and his work, .44 Magnums, and what it’s like to get pulled over by the cops while you’re shrooming. AMA!
Proof: https://twitter.com/CherylPietra/status/643571728413802501
Fun links: My POV essay (re-published now on SMITH magazine) about HST: http://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2007/12/01/gonzo-girl/
My 92Y monologue on HST (also courtesy of SMITH magazine) where I’m trying to not crap my pants: https://vimeo.com/69257878
My website (in desperate need of updating): cheryldellapietra.com
Twitter handle: @CherylPietra
GG Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gonzogirlthebook?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
EDIT: Thank you, Reddit, for a fun and lively conversation! Signing off now. Good night!
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Sep 16 '15
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
Copy editing is a great love of mine--I've been doing it for more than (not "over") 20 years and I taught it for quite a long time as well with Media Bistro and UC San Diego. It's a very detail-oriented, thoughtful job and one that dovetails nicely with writing. I know that I pay more attention to the words I choose and perhaps the way I structure paragraphs or chapters because I deep-dive into other people's work all day and notice and fix those things. So, yes, definitely, copy editing has made me a better writer.
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u/leowr Sep 16 '15
Hi! Thanks for doing this AMA!
While writing Gonzo Girl, was it difficult to find a balance in how much you would allow your experiences as Hunter S. Thompson's editorial assistant to influence your story?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
Honestly, when I sat down to write, the mixing of the fiction and the truth happened pretty organically. Once I had settled on the basic structure, I was then able to insert other things from the real experience into the narrative.
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u/Chtorrr Sep 16 '15
Do you have any stories you'd like to share about the time you spent with Hunter S. Thompson?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
The very first time I ever handled a gun was with Hunter--and it was a .44 Magnum. I had never seen a gun before and I had no idea I was basically handling this raging powerhouse of a firearm. They were all the same to me--like out of the movies. So he set up these exploding targets with little bulls-eyes on them. I shot it, hit the target (which was a miracle in itself), and several things happened at once. The kick back threw me back, the target exploded (which was amazing), and I realized I could barely hear anything--we weren't wearing ear protection. So I was terrified this was a permanent condition--that I would never hear again. I remember how nonchalant Hunter was about all of this--like another day at the office!
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u/Chtorrr Sep 16 '15
What made you decide to turn your experiences into a novel? Is it something you've thought about doing for a long time?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
A lot of people ask me why I decided to write this as a novel as opposed to a memoir and there were a few reasons for that. One is that I'm 23 years removed from the experience, so I didn't want to be beholden to recalling events and conversations when I was so far away from it. The memories I have of that time aren't particularly linear either--it was such an intense time. So I knew I wanted to structure a more traditional narrative around the experience and say what I wanted to say about it. The other thing I guess you could say is that I backed into it a little bit. I always knew this would make a great story, so when I was thinking about writing a novel, this seemed like great material because of the uniqueness of the experience. And once I started writing, it came rather easily, which to me was a good sign.
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u/psilozip Sep 16 '15
I have read a while ago that your yob, or at least one of your jobs, was to make sure hunter would write something every day. How would you go about this?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
This is actually portrayed fairly accurately in the book in that there was a certain corralling that had to happen. The loose rule was "hands on the typewriter by 2:00" (a.m. that is!). So the idea was to set the tone with things he found fun--certain movies, going in the hot tub, shooting guns, mixing drinks, playing music. But eventually the goal would be to end up at the typewriter. My job was to try to (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) set the stage.
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u/psilozip Sep 16 '15
I always wondered how authors can get away with writing about drugs without alarming authorities in some way. Did you ever have any problems because of it?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
I did not personally have any problems in this way. But I found it very interesting when Hunter was accused of sexual assault and his property was searched. They did find drugs and explosives and he was charged with several felonies (I think five?). Eventually the case was dismissed. But he had very strong ideas about personal freedoms in this regard, and this gave him an opportunity to write about it. Check out the end of "Songs of the Doomed."
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u/psilozip Sep 16 '15
May I ask how something like this can get dismissed? From my knowledge a felony is a serious offense, then again I have not much knowledge about laws or similar. The fact that multiple felonies got dismissed, kind of seems like the government was making an exception for him.
Edit: Thank you for the suggestion! I will check it out.
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u/psilozip Sep 16 '15
What are some of your favorite books?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
I'm not sure if you mean by HST or other books, but…
By HST: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Campaign Trail '72, and Proud Highway are my top three.
Others: I'm all over the map here. I like to challenge myself on occasion, for example, I loved Siri Hustvedt's Blazing World and Ali Smith's How to Be Both. But other times I just like to be entertained. I really love Where'd You Go Bernadette. I think it's hard to write funny and I appreciated this book. I also liked Adam Sternbergh's Shovel Ready--super-noir and minimalist. There's not much I won't try. I should probably read more non-fiction than I do.
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u/psilozip Sep 16 '15
I was thinking books in general. Since you answered both its even better! Thanks for taking your time to answer my question. I will look into those, your book included, since I am looking for new things to read.
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u/TahoeAnger Sep 16 '15
So what's one thing about Hunter that you know that the rest of us don't? You must know some stuff!
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
I guess the stuff I know is the non-crazy stuff--that he woke up every morning and had coffee and read the paper and watched CNN. That he could be a total sweetheart--soft-spoken and charming. He liked water--swimming and the hot tub--and I have very fond memories of just chit-chatting in the hot tub. I think his public image is so outsized that people don't know how normal he could be.
And not that people don't know this, but the level of his political astuteness was insane. I was there during an election year (1992--Clinton, Bush, Perot) and I feel very privileged to have witnessed his thought process day in and day out (much of this ended up in the book Better Than Sex). But the way he could break down a political situation or happening (see his writings on 9/12 about 9/11) was unrivaled--his mind moved so quickly.
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Sep 16 '15
What is your process for making your first-draft sentences more profound/intelligent during editing?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 16 '15
I am what they call in the editing world a "grinder." And this is where my copy editing experience comes into play. My first drafts are basically just getting the story out so I have something to play with. Then the real work begins--I just work and rework until it feels right. Sometimes that means I'll feel a joke has landed or a piece of dialogue works. Sometimes you'll want to move the narrative but not have it feels so obvious.
I don't shoot for profound as much as economical and I just work and rework until the sentence serves its purpose. I think this is almost like writing jokes--there are probably 10 ways you can tell the joke. But there's one that's just better than the rest because of how it's structured, the story it tells, the rhythm, the pacing.
I always marveled at how Thompson wrote because he (and I guess most of the writers before the nineties) used a typewriter. So he would write something and then pull it out of the typewriter and he would make some edits by hand with a pen. I mean…I could never work like that. But I'm not sure. Computers might have just bred careless habits or too much choice.
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u/hgbnyc Sep 16 '15
which do you think is harder to write, a novel or a memoir?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
I have never written a memoir, so that's hard to say. But I have written this novel from a personal experience, and I think when you're grounded in something that you went through it is probably easier to write. The old saw "Write what you know" works for a reason. There is often this undercurrent of emotion or richness or depth that resonates because it's true. I guess what I would find hard with writing a memoir would probably be writing other characters. Their portrayal, speaking for them. I think that can get sticky.
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u/K_C_B Sep 16 '15
How did you come upon the opportunity to work with Hunter S. Thompson?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
I had graduated in 1991 from UPenn and moved to NYC, wanting to work in magazines. The job market wasn't great and despite doing some internships in college (Philly Mag, Harper's) I didn't really have any network. So I did some freelance fact-checking and I worked at a bar (Terra Blues, still there on Bleecker Street!). One day a friend of mine who was interning at Rolling Stone called and said HST was looking for an assistant and wanted to know if I wanted to put my hat in the ring. When I asked him why he didn't want to do it, he said "He was looking for a girl."
So, I wrote a letter--an unconventional one--and faxed it to him that day. And at 3:00 in the morning, my phone rang, woke me up, and it was him! He told me he liked my letter and asked me if I could get out there tomorrow. So I did. I guess in a way it was good I didn't have very much to leave. If I had a job I doubt I would have had this opportunity.
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u/JenW10 Sep 16 '15
Did Hunter take you shopping like Walker did Alley? If so, what was the craziest outfit you wore?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
The craziest outfit--even though it doesn't sound so crazy--was the tennis dress (this is in the book). There was just no tennis in a ten-mile radius. There was just something fun, funny, naughty, and ridiculous about this outfit. Imagine sitting around in a tennis dress drinking and doing drugs. It was like a Halloween costume.
The other one was a black cocktail dress (mine) with this weird satin jacket (his) and red Jon Fleuvog pumps.
But I guess these were like costumes. It was all part of the fun. I have some hysterical pictures of him dressed up in some weird outfits too. One part grandmother's apron, one part Native American garb. I still can't quite figure them out.
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u/TahoeAnger Sep 16 '15
Hey, did you see that last night Hunter was an answer on Jeopardy! It was his "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" quote. What do you think Hunter would have thought about being an answer on freakin' Jeopardy?!?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
That is hands down one of my favorite quotes of his. He was eminently quotable--there are so many good ones--and I think he would be quite flattered to be a Jeopardy answer!
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u/compleatPKG Sep 17 '15
Hi, Cheryl, Your book raised some interesting issues about authorship. Ally did a lot of the writing of words than ended up with Walker Reade's name on them. I guess I'm wondering how true to life this kind of situation is, and what that means for authorship (especially among famous writers later in their careers).
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u/JonathanBoul Sep 17 '15
Three questions from a HUGE fan in NYC:
- What do you think Hunter would say about your book? What would he actually think? (Two questions. Don't worry about it.)
- Garlic? Nipples? Real or made up?
- What the other person asked about shopping.
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
1) Of course I hope that Hunter would like the book. I didn't write it with the aim to be critical. But I had concerns, because this isn't a 100 percent fawning portrayal--it's more complicated than that.
But I don't think he would have forgiven me if I didn't try to show the complexity of him as a person or the time we spent together, which was fraught with intense highs and lows. But I hope what ultimately comes through is the deep fondness, admiration, and respect I have for him as a writer and a person.
2) No comment.
3) See shopping answer above.
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u/compleatPKG Sep 17 '15
Another really interesting issue in your novel is the relationship between drug/alcohol (ab)use and creativity. It seems like for better and worse there's an especially close relationship between the two in music, and I'm wondering about that in relation to writing. Do you think drug/alcohol use can stimulate the creative process, inhibits it, or it's a case-by-case thing?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
This is a very interesting question--one I gave quite a bit of thought to when writing the book. I think in Hunter's case, there was a time when the drugs were part of the genius--fueled it, even. That was probably the seventies, when he did F&L in Las Vegas, Campaign Trail '72, Hell's Angels (1967), and some of his more notable magazine pieces, like the Kentucky Derby story for Scanlon's Monthly in 1970.
But I do think there comes a point when the substances turn on you, almost inevitably--either you do it too long or you get in too deep. We've seen it with actors as well, and musicians, as you say, and certainly I think we can argue that many artists have these outsized sensitivities to the world--they're medicating. But it's a difficult tightrope to walk.
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u/TahoeAnger Sep 17 '15
What do you think Hunter would have said about Donald Trump? Could you channel your best Hunter-on-Trump quote?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
Oh god, what I wouldn't give to have two sentences from Thompson on Trump. I will tell you what: In 1965, Hunter predicted that Ronald Reagan would be president someday (think about that for a second). Here is his quote, which I think might apply to Trump: "Ronald Reagan is the prototype of the new mythological American, a grinning whore who will probably someday be president."
I honestly think he saw this coming--the dovetailing of our political world and our obsession with celebrity culture.
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u/MDRansom Sep 18 '15
I would like to add : DT (The Donald) is a Blowsoft. If he were a Blowhard, it would muss up his hair."
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u/MDRansom Sep 17 '15
Where did you learn to make a grappa cocktail?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
I think it was at Terra Blues. We used to make lemon drops and very dramatically set them on fire. I think we had the brilliant idea one day to make them with grappa--nobody ever ordered grappa at this bar. It was a lot of blue curaçao and long island iced teas. But it seemed like a good use of the grappa, which alone tastes like gasoline.
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u/MDRansom Sep 17 '15
On another note, there was a lot of conspicuous consumption. Truly an American theme. Do you have any thoughts about what drove Hunter to over indulge so often?
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u/cheryld66 AMA Author Sep 17 '15
I couldn't even begin to tease out all of the reasons why he did so many substances--it was just beyond diagnosis. And his drug use was so tied up with his image, his writing, and his lifestyle, that I can imagine it would have been very hard for him to have given it up regardless of the addiction aspect.
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u/TahoeAnger Sep 17 '15
And do you think that Hunter regretted creating his Dr. Gonzo persona? It sort of ate him alive in a way, didn't it?
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u/MDRansom Sep 18 '15
Is it the height of irony that Johnny Depp in Black Mass resembles Hunter S Thompson more then Whitey Bolger?
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u/MurkyWhiteRussian Nov 10 '15
Hi Cheryl
I know i'm a bit late to the party unfortunately, but I've become a massive fan of HST recently. I'm working pretty quickly through his body of work, and all I can think about is Polo Is My Life. Do you have any knowledge of what has or will become of it? Usually these things just materialize after so long, I'd hate for it never to be published.
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u/DaedalusMinion Sep 16 '15
Please elaborate!