When Hunter S. Thompson killed himself in 2005, William McKeen said he felt like he was a part of the "circle of life."
It was 11:15 p.m., he remembers, and former Alligator editor turned Los Angeles Times entertainment reporter Geoff Boucher called him to share the bad news. "Hunter's dead. I thought you'd want to hear it from a friend," Boucher said.
Another student phoned in at 2 a.m., and McKeen poured himself a shot of Kentucky Bourbon in Thompson's honor.
It was that sort of day.
McKeen now has a new generation of students calling him at 2 o'clock in the morning, something Thompson, a journalist and author who wrote "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," was known for.
"It was just like Hunter would have done. There was real time, and then there was Hunter time," McKeen said.
McKeen has pieced together the stories and recollections into his newest book, "Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson," which hits stores July 18, what would have been Thompson's 71st birthday. The biography is his second book about Thompson, who was an acquaintance of McKeen's.
It's his attempt to honor the sort of man Thompson really was, he said. McKeen doesn't want to make him a hero.
"I hope they realize Hunter Thompson was a lot more complicated than they realized, that he wasn't some drug-guzzling clown, that he really worked hard at what he did," McKeen said.
McKeen, professor and chairman of UF's journalism department, recently celebrated his 10-year anniversary as department chair.
Thompson, a man McKeen said most people know from stories about his "Tony Montana levels of cocaine" and the way he was portrayed in movies, lived a colorful life doing a lot of other things. He was in the Air Force, drifted off to the Caribbean, rode with Hells Angels and was coincidentally at the Watergate Hotel during the Democratic National Convention break-in. Most important, McKeen said, was his writing.
"He's sort of like Forrest Gump in that he's everywhere," he said.
McKeen explored that "everywhere" in order to write his book. One of Thompson's talents was his ability to put the right people together, he said. After meeting so many interesting people during his research, McKeen's opinion on writing changed.
Even though the book required the hardest amount of work and the most effort, writing and suffering no longer went hand in hand. Instead, this book ended up being the most fun McKeen has had writing.
At the end of his life, Thompson suffered several injuries that impaired his mobility. He found himself helpless and in a wheelchair, something McKeen could relate to after breaking his own leg.
After working on this book for three years, most of which he spent in a wheelchair, McKeen pushed himself to finish the book in six months. He worked on deadline while he was still in a wheelchair, when he felt he could empathize with Thompson the most. He feels Thompson would have appreciated it. The book was finished in April.
McKeen knew going into the project that Thompson was an imperfect human being.
"His life was so interesting that people need to stand out of the way and let it tell its story. No one has ever done that."
He said he's the first one to play it straight and hopes his homage to Thompson does him justice.
"In 50 years, when you look back on the 20th century, at a distance, I think he'll be a Mark Twain sort of character," McKeen said.
Early critics of the book have given McKeen great reviews. Three of Thompson's lifelong friends have said they really liked it, which McKeen said means a lot to him.
"I'm just hoping people like it and no one kills me."
