I first encountered Hunter S. Thompson as a teenager when I purchased a used copy of Hell’s Angels from a fundraiser in Scottsdale Mall (Delta, BC).
Thompson didn’t go undercover or infiltrate the Angels, he merely befriended them and spent a year or so living with them. The resulting book was extraordinary.
Just today, I learnt that the book was the result of a pitch to Thompson by an editor at Random House who had read his article in The Nation. Here is that 1965 article.
The difference between the Hell’s Angels in the paper and the Hell’s Angels for real is enough to make a man wonder what newsprint is for. It also raises a question as to who are the real hell’s angels.