Gonzo Girl

May 4, 2015
In this fictional debut from Della Pietra, who once served as an assistant to Hunter S. Thompson, ambitious Alley Russo subjects herself to a washed-up iconic writer’s drink-and-drug-fueled mood swings and the dangerously decadent lifestyle he can’t really afford. With her salary contingent on getting the writer, Walker Reade, to deliver his latest novel, and enticed by the possibility of making connections to publish her own writing, Alley leaves her family in Connecticut to work for Walker on his Colorado ranch. By turns fun and mean, 52-year-old Walker dates women half his age and engages in daily shenanigans to keep up his rebel image. Alley is disappointed to learn that Walker’s well has run dry as he pecks out the occasional page of drivel. Without thinking through the possible fallout, she takes it upon herself to edit and rewrite his work before sending it to his editor, who likes the final product. Further complicating matters is the toxic codependent haze initiated by Walker’s long-time assistant, Claudia Reynolds. While the novel dishes out plenty of illicit good times, Della Pietra also manages to bring moments of poignancy to the narrative. Though the tedium of excess might be the point, it’s an occasional slog to read through pages of druggy nonconversation. But there are far more engaging moments than dull ones, and Della Pietra ultimately steers her story to a believable, satisfying, and moving conclusion.

June 1, 2015

Aspiring writer Alley Russo jumps at the chance to work for infamous novelist Walker Reade as his newest assistant. With hopes of eventually promoting her own novel, she endures the endless hazing rituals of verbal abuse, sleepless nights, and excessive recreational drug use. Walker's juvenile, dangerous, and expensive antics include coke-fueled shopping sprees, pyrotechnic harassment of fellow celebrities, and casual trips to the shooting range while high. Nevertheless, Alley slowly compels Walker to produce usable pages (while editing them into more coherent work on the sly), as her paycheck and eventually her own manuscript become tied to Walker's finished product. Ultimately, she must decide if the future possibilities are worth the price. VERDICT Drawing on her experience as an assistant to Hunter S. Thompson, counterculture icon and father of "gonzo journalism," debut author Pietra blends amusing imagery, outrageous pranks, and snappy dialog into a lively read. However, Alley is not completely sympathetic in her progressively desperate situation, since she is a willing participant in the reckless behavior. For readers curious about Thompson's lifestyle and fans of eccentric characters and meandering journeys featuring copious amounts of illegal substances.--Emily Byers, Tillamook Cty. Lib., OR

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2015
This autobiographical novel about a year spent as Hunter S. Thompson's personal assistant contains crazy highs (of course) and many dismal lows. This is a harrowing book, depicting Thompson (here called Walker Reade) in the twilight of his career, with his writing powers waning and self-esteem in peril. He needs an assistant-and hires only young, female ones-to help him stay on track to finish a book. Della Pietra's narrator, aspiring writer Alley Russo, wants to escape her dreary bartending gig on Long Island and the low expectations of her blue-collar family. She arrives in Colorado to find a group of hangers-on trying to keep Walker happy by laughing at his jokes and sharing his cocaine, and she feels the pressure to fall into lock step. The extent to which she does is what makes this story so horrifying, as well as fascinating. Alley clicks with Walker, and she captures his surly, blunt, occasionally brilliant dialogue with a writer's ear. She joins in with the drug-taking and constant drinking, having been told it's part of her duties, and also keeps him writing-an achievement in this atmosphere. But Walker has become a mean drunk and submits the women around him to a lot of abuse. He insists Alley dress sexier, even driving her to a local mall and giving judgments on outfits she models for him. He calls her "moron" one minute and has his hand on her knee the next. That an intelligent Ivy League graduate chooses to go along with this treatment, feeling there's no other path away from anonymity, gives the book an undercurrent of horror. That said, it has the allure of a car crash-you'll keep reading as Walker's antics become more outrageous and his mood more foul. There's also something poignant in the vulnerability he occasionally reveals to his young assistant; they're attracted to each other, but this is one area Della Pietra seems to have gauged as too dangerous to tap. Nevertheless, their intimacy grows even in a cloud of hangovers, freshly mixed drinks, and the ever present drugs. At one point, Alley muses that Walker can't give up his wildly indulgent lifestyle because it's too much a part of his public identity. It's simply sad, though, that a writer of Walker's caliber thinks the main thing he has to contribute to American letters is being constantly wasted. A novel that shows our nation's path from refreshing nonconformity to end-times careerism.

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July 1, 2015
Anyone familiar with the legendary journalist Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1971) will instantly recognize that the outrageous and outrageously talented writer is the inspiration for Pietra's coke-snorting, gun-toting, outlaw author, Walker Reade. Based on her experiences as Thompson's assistant in 1992, Pietra's debut novel about naive Ivy League graduate Alley Russo's immersion in Reade's phantasmagorical world teems with LSD, firearms, bimbos, and paranoia as he desperately tries to crank out one more book to stave off financial ruin. An innocent abroad, Alley is advised to say yes instead of no to Reade's every invitation or demand until she becomes an increasingly unwilling slave to his every neurotic whim. In doing so, she falls deeper down the rabbit hole that comprises this brilliant madman's life until she's not sure how, or even if, she can ever crawl back out. Despite or perhaps because of the egregious excesses Pietra describes in lush and ludicrous detail, what emerges is as accurate a glimpse into this much mythologized realm as Thompson fans are likely to get.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)