Half a century on, Thompson’s themes of capitalism and greed, racial tension and the inadequacies of traditional journalism still resonate. Illustrations by Ralph Steadman, a British artist, depict them as twisted and deformed, more animal than human. Most of the cameos are as repellent as the narrator-cruel, ignorant, greedy, prejudiced and occasionally violent. The counterculture of the 1960s is in its death throes with Richard Nixon in the White House, America is sliding towards something darker and meaner. Thompson uses Vegas, a city “so grossly atavistic that a really massive crime often slips by unrecognised”, as a symbol of a country in the midst of political and ideological change.

Its appeal rests less on the depraved antics of the main characters than on their encounters with other people, and its bleakly humorous dissection of the American psyche. But it subsequently achieved cult status, boosted by a film adaptation in 1998.

Reviews were mixed when the novel appeared as a single volume in 1972 (“more hype than book”, sniffed the New Republic). Grasping that the many cops in attendance don’t have a clue what they are talking about, they again abandon their assignment and spend a few days in the grip of “amphetamine psychosis”, trawling late-night diners and taco stands in search of the American dream, “burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help”. They flee the city before the damage is discovered, but return almost immediately to cover the National District Attorneys’ Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The duo attend the Mint 400 but soon embark on a two-day bender amid the glitzy decadence of Vegas casinos, destroying their hotel room and running up a huge bill they have no intention of paying.

On the surface, the novel is about the consumption of this arsenal of mind-altering substances and the visions and paranoia, vomiting and violence that ensue.

The fear and loathing in las vegas