Synopses & Reviews
The Rum Diary was begun in 1959 by then-twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson. It was his first novel, and he told his friend, the author William Kennedy, that
The Rum Diary would "in a twisted way...do for San Juan what Ernest Hemingway's
The Sun Also Rises did for Paris." In Paul Kemp, the novel's hero, there are echoes of the young Thompson, who was himself honing his wildly musical writing style as one of the "ill-tempered wandering rabble" on staff at the
San Juan Daily News at the time. "I shared a dark suspicion," Kemp says, "that the life we were leading was a lost cause, we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles -- a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other -- that kept me going."
The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery & violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. "It was a gold rush," says the author. "There were naked people everywhere and we all had credit."
Puerto Rico was an unspoiled tropical paradise in those years -- before Castro, before JFK, before civil rights & moonwalks & flower power & Vietnam & protests & even before drugs -- but the San Juan Daily News was a vortex & a snakepit of all the corrupt new schemes & plots & greedmongers who swarmed in. Paul Kemp, The Rum Diary's narrator, speaks for the unfocused angst of those times: "In a sense I was one of them -- more competent than some and more stable than others -- and in the years that carried that ragged banner I was seldom unemployed. Sometimes I worked for three newspapers at once. I wrote ad copy for new casinos and bowling alleys, I was a consultant for the cockfighting syndicate, an utterly corrupt high-end restaurant critic, a yachting photographer and a routine victim of police brutality. It was a greedy life and I was good at it. I made some interesting friends, had enough money to get around, and learned a lot about the world that I could never have learned in any other way."
Review
San Francisco Chronicle Crackling, twisted, searing, paced to a deft prose rhythm...a shot of Gonzo with a rum chaser. New York Daily News Enough booze to float a yacht and enough fear and loathing to sink it. The Philadelphia Inquirer A great and an unexpected joy...reveals a young Hunter Thompson brimming with talent. The Washington Post Book World At the core of this hard-drinking, hard-talking, hard-living man is a moralist, Puritan, even an innocent. The Rum Diary gives us this side of him without apology...with a kind of pride. Salon A remarkably full and mature first novel...a languid and lovingly executed book that reveals its emotional depths slowly. USA Today Throughout The Rum Diary, Thompson flashes signs of the vitriol that would later be turned loose on society. William Kennedy Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed The tools Hunter S. Thompson would use in the years ahead-bizarre wit, mockery without end, redundant excess, supreme self-confidence, the narrative of the wounded meritorious ego, and the idiopathic anger of the righteous outlaw -- were all there in his precocious imagination in San Juan. There, too were the beginnings of his future as a masterful prose stylist. Jimmy Buffett The Run Diary shows a side of human nature that is ugly and wrong. But it is a world that Hunter Thompson knows in the nerves of his neck. This is a brilliant tribal study and a bone in the throat of all decent people.
Review
“Crackling, twisted, searing, paced to a deft prose rhythm . . . A shot of Gonzo with a rum chaser.” —San Francisco Chronicle
Review
“Enough booze to float a yacht and enough fear and loathing to sink it.” —New York Daily News
Review
“A great and an unexpected joy . . . Reveals a young Hunter Thompson brimming with talent.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
“At the core of this hard-drinking, hard-talking, hard-living man is a moralist, Puritan, even an innocent. The Rum Diary gives us this side of him without apology . . . with a kind of pride." —The Washington Post Book World
Review
“Thompson flashes signs of the vitriol that would later be turned loose on society.” —USA Today
Synopsis
Made into a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary--a national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book--is Hunter S. Thompson's brilliant love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent lust in the Caribbean. Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule, and anything (including murder) is permissible. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, this dazzling comedic romp provides a fictional excursion as riveting and outrageous as Thompson's Fear and Loathing books.
Synopsis
The Rum Diary was begun in 1959 by a then-twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson. It was his first novel and he told his friend, the author William Kennedy, that
The Rum Diary would "in a twisted way...do for San Juan what Ernest Hemingway's
The Sun Also Rises did for Paris." In Paul Kemp, the novel's hero, there are echoes of the young Thompson, who was himself honing his wildly musical writing style as one of the "ill-tempered wandering rabble" on staff at the
San Juan Daily News at the time.
"I share a dark suspicion," Kemp says, "that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles -- a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other -- that kept me going."
The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery & violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. "It was a gold rush," says the author. "There were naked people everywhere and we all had credit."
Synopsis
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary—Hunter S. Thompson’s brilliant love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent lust in the Caribbean is now available on audio for only $14.99.Hailed by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “laugh-out-loud funny” and “a great and an unexpected joy,” The Rum Diary “reveals a young Hunter S. Thompson brimming with talent.” Based on Thompson’s own experiences as a reporter in Puerto Rico for The Nation, the National Journal, and the San Juan Star in the late fifties and early sixties, The Rum Diary is a tangled love story in a Caribbean boomtown. The narrator, Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule, and anything (including murder) is permissible. In his signature tongue-in-cheek style, Thompson presents a dazzling, comedic romp, a fictional excursion as riveting and outrageous as his popular Fear and Loathing books.
About the Author
Hunter S. Thompson was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. His books include
Hell's Angels,
Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone,
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72,
The Rum Diary, and
Better than Sex. He died in
February 2005.
Campbell Scott directed the film
Off The Map, and received the best actor award from the National Board of Review for his performance in
Roger Dodger. His other films include
The Secret Lives of Dentists, The Dying Gaul, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and
Big Night, which he also co-directed.