When the two start off for Las Vegas, their official assignment is to cover the Mint 400, a local motorbike race. However, their true motive is, as Thompson states at the beginning of the story, to find the “American Dream.” Packed with high expectations, they explore the insides of Las Vegas, constantly experimenting with new and dangerous substances. The drug influence causes them to do all sorts of crazy things, including, but not limited to: 1) mistaking people for giant lizards; 2) brandishing knives everywhere, all the while spurting gibberish; 3) driving a car right into the entrance of a hotel.

That's basically all there is to the story. Two guys super-high on narcotics wandering through the center of American pop culture. So is this merely another version of *Confessions of an Addict*? Hardly. Hidden within the uncanny acid use and Thompson's snide comments lies a bitter tone, painting the tragic zeitgeist of the era's counterculture—people who’d turned to drugs to forget the harsh ugliness of society’s excess and commercialism. In effect, the duo’s behavior emphasizes a message summarized by a quote Thompson gives before starting his story: "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Then where indeed is the American Dream, the purpose of this mission? Near the end of the book, our two heroes ask locals where it is. They are told it is the name of a regional psychiatrist's office. When they arrive at the place, however, all they see is a “huge slab of cracked, scorched concrete in a vacant lot full of tall weeds,” which, they learn, had “burned down about three years go.” Thus was the fate, in Thompson’s point of view, of both the literal and figurative American Dream.

   Hunter S. Thompson is accredited as being the creator of Gonzo journalism. Gonzo journalism refers to a type of reporting in which the writer becomes so involved with the topic being covered that he becomes a central figure of the story. Accuracy is often considered not as important as the style and quality of the writing; the important thing is “getting the message through.” Many critics have panned the book for its exaggeration of reality and psychedelic craziness, but Thompson believed what the great writer William Faulkner did: “The best fiction is far more *true* than any kind of journalism.” Through Thompson’s fervent and sometimes unintelligible prose, *Fear and Loathing* tells the *true* story of what happened to the country in the 70s, one that no newspaper ever did.