gang gave him a savage beating or "stomping" over a remark made by Thompson to an Angel named Junkie George, who was beating his wife. Thompson said: "Only a punk beats his wife and dog." The beating stopped only when senior members of the club ordered it. Thompson had essentially ended his time with the Angels by then, but he would later note in letters to friends and Sonny Barger that the members who had participated in the beating had not been those with whom he had most closely associated. He continued being fond of Barger and others in the club. Plot and themes The book details Thompson's experiences living with the Hells Angels, a notorious motorcycle club in California. The author spent over a year embedded with one chapter, learning their unique subculture and immersing himself in their lifestyle. He recounts his time spent traveling through California by motorcycle, and describes the contrast between the general lawlessness of the club and the exaggerated fear that very lawlessness engenders in society. According to a contemporary New York Times review of the book, Thompson relates how he "drank at their bars, exchanged home visits, recorded their brutalities, viewed their sexual caprices, became converted to their motorcycle mystique, and was so intrigued, as he puts it, that 'I was no longer sure whether I was doing research on the Hell's Angels or being slowly absorbed by them.' " The book's epigraph is a translation of François Villon's 15th-century poem Ballade du concours de Blois: Effects and criticism Hell's Angels was the book that launched Thompson's career as a writer. Even though by this point in his career he had published numerous articles for various journals and newspapers and was recognized as a journalist, the book was his first true exposure to a national audience. Reviews of the work were generally very positive and despite a poor performance on the publicity tour by Thompson, who was by his own admission drunk or exhausted for nearly every interview, the book sold relatively well. Even so, Thompson himself made little from the royalties from early editions of the book, a misfortune he blamed on a succession of agents and the book's publisher, Random House. Thompson's treatment of a gang-rape by Hells Angels was criticized by feminist Susan Brownmiller in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape. Editions Thompson, Hunter S. Hell's Angels: