I haven't read Thompson's «sensationalist» book yet, but I imagine it to be the moral equivalent of Anthony Bourdain's
amusing copout Kitchen Confidential, where as «insider» he plays the bon - temp roué, and finks on the
fact that restaurants throw out their expiring
food into our «specials,» and that new brides, perforce inebriated with love for their new husbands, may occasionally (not often, I hope) be found in flagrante being bagged by daredevil waiters out in the trattoria courtyard.