The Revolt of the Cockroach People

by Oscar Zeta Acosta

Book Overview

The further adventures of "Dr. Gonzo" as he defends the "cucarachas"-- the Chicanos of East Los Angeles.

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971, Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo" a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679722122
• ISBN13: 9780679722120
• Release Date: August 1989
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Kansas

Re-Saturday Review of LiteratureOscar Acosta disappeared in Mexico in 1974, not 1971 (the year of his trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Thompson).

First Impressions

This is the most realistic book I have ever seen about Mexican American hippies in Aztlan, the Chicanos of the 1960's neo-freedom movements. It will surely become a collector's item worth saving in this era of gung-ho Americanism which does not know the kind of objectivity Acosta displays with regard to how we think and why we believe as we do. Hunter S. Thompson described the author better than I can in his introduction to the book, highlighting his uniqueness while lamenting his untimely passing. I will write more after I give the book a more thorough second reading.

Powerful account of the chicano "brown power" movement

Acosta's Gonzo jurnalistic approach to the events occuring in the turbulent 60's and 70's in Californa will burn a lasting impression in your mind. A clear look into the world of minorities struggeling for their view of the American dream.

One of the best truthful biographies written.

A man searching for an identity in the legal profession, with Hunter S. Thompson and in El Paso. Discovers that he is A Brown Buffalo, A Chicano.