The Rum Diary: A Novel (Bloomsbury Classic Reads)

by Hunter S Thompson

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.

• ISBN10: 0684856476
• ISBN13: 9780684856476
• Publish Date: 1 November 1999 (first published 19 October 1998)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Prentice Hall (a Pearson Education company)
• Imprint: Prentice Hall & IBD
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 204
• Language: English

Reviews

[viking2917]

“I had a flash of something, a mixture of ignorance and a loose, “what the hell” kind of confidence that comes from a man when the wind picks up and he begins to move in a kind of straight line toward an unknown horizon” -- Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary

Journalist Paul Temp (a loose version of an early Hunter S Thompson) leaves NY and heads to Puerto Rico. Soaked in rum, lustfully smitten by his friend's girlfriend, Paul isn't entirely sympathetic. But he's an interesting guy to follow around. The Rum Diary is intense, violent, often near-racist, and gives a lot of insight into where Hunter S Thompson was headed.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

This is a mediocre semi-biographical novel about a very ill tempered, drunkard of a journalist. The whole book is just a content battle with jealousy, treachery, violent alcoholism and lust but this book doesn’t really move very fast and seems to feel like it drags way too much. I was expecting something exciting but the plot seemed to drag on and while hinting at a plot this book never really took off. Maybe as a movie it would be cut down enough to make a plot but as a book this seemed to drag on way too much.