CALIFORNIA, Labor Day weekend... Early, with the ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades, and greasy levis roll out from damp garages, all-diners, and castoff one-night pads.... Little Jesus, The Gimp, Blind Bob, Terry the Tramp, Frenchy, Mouldy Marvin, Mother Miles, Dirty Ed, Charley the Child Molester, Crazy Cross, Puff, Magoo, and at least a hundred more.... The menace is loose again, the Hell's Angels, running fast and loud on the early morning freeway... long hair in the wind, beards and bandannas flapping, earrings, armpits, chain whips, swastika and stripped-down Harleys flashing chrome, jamming crazy through traffic at 90 miles an hour like a burst of dirty thunder...
- Hunter S. Thompson—From the back cover of a 1967 copy of Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
This is an excellent book for anyone who is interested in either the Hell's Angels or the works of Thompson. The book is NOT a gonzo work, so don't get it if you’re looking for another Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Jkeak was dead-on when he described the book as an anthropology work. Thompson follows the Angels and participates in their parties and runs, even hosting his own parties for the Angels and bringing trunkloads of beer to their gatherings. The Angels' customs and rituals are discussed at length, and Thompson debunks many myths while affirming just as many.
Thompson was eventually stomped by a group of Angels not affiliated with those he befriended. During the book's composition the Angels heads began to swell regarding their image; the California intellectual scene was all abuzz with terms like "modern outlaws" and Time had released an article about them. Thompson describes the stomping as coming out of four or five Angels who felt they were being taken advantage of. The only Angel that Thompson knew at that gathering was the one who eventually pulled the others off of him. A picture of Thompson shortly after the stomping can be found in Fear and Loathing in America : The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist.
For more unbiased info on the Angels in their heyday check out the “Hell’s Angels” chapter in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.