After the marathon, Thompson along with Steadman and his family move to a rented beach side compound on Hawaii's Kona coast.

Due to his dependence on alcohol and other drugs, Thompson struggled so badly to write The Curse of Lono that his editor, Alan Rinzler, had to steal the manuscript, which was partially written on scraps of paper.

[3] Lacking substance and coherence, the text was hastily assembled and then padded with quotes from other books, with a heavy paper used in order to make it seem more substantial.

I was surprised by the degree of degeneration in Hunter’s work.”[6] The book was poorly reviewed and was not reprinted until 2005 in a signed, limited edition, then more widely released in 2014.

"[7] In November 2017, it was announced that Steve Pink has signed on to direct the film adaptation from a script by JD Rosen.