DAMARISCOTTA — Attention Hunter Thompson fans! Join Maine author, Brian Kevin at The Maine Coast Book Shop, Main Street, Damariscotta, for the launch of his new book, just out this month, “The Footloose American: Following the Hunter S. Thompson Trail Across South America,” on Saturday, May 31 from 2-4 p.m. in the bookstore cafe, where he wrote most of his book on his laptop, over coffee.

Before he became America’s foremost gonzo journalist, the young Hunter S. Thompson was a bohemian foreign correspondent, a self-described “footloose American” filing dispatches on culture and politics from deep in the Amazon and the Andes. With Thompson’s route as a roadmap and ghost as a guide, Kevin’s book takes readers on a smart trek across South America, exploring a rapidly changing continent and a forgotten chapter in the life of one our sharpest cultural critics. The event is free and open to the public.