The Rum Diary
Select Format
Select Condition 
Book Overview
**New York Times Notable Book "Nobody tells you that reading Hunter S. Thompson novels as a young adult male while serving in the military is a potentially very bad idea. Some things you simply must absorb and learn on your own." --Sturgill Simpson 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.
Customer Reviews
Rated 2 stars"Goes Nowhere."
When I informed a friend of mine who had read this book previously that I had ordered it, and was going to read it, his response was, "that book goes nowhere." Up to about halfway through the book, I could not believe his prior sentiment, since I was really enjoying the story, and the general debauchery fueled lifestyle of each character, but then there was an almost sudden drop-off. It just stopped being compelling, and building...
0Report
Rated 3 starsWriting is beautiful, but no real tension
Paul Kemp moves to Puerto Rico for a position with the local paper. He's a drifter, never quite finding a place to put down roots, and though he wishes that San Juan will be different for him, he soon realizes that is not to be. He yearns for the places he hasn't been yet, or has already been; he yearns to be anywhere but where he is at that moment. He hates Old San Juan, he despises Condado, he visits St Thomas and is ready...
0Report
Rated 5 starsGreat "ficton" story
A great "fictional" story that hunter writes about a journalist that travels to Puerto Rico to work and gets caught up in the usual HST madness.
1Report
Rated 4 starsA side of human nature that is ugly and wrong.
Recently, I've been reading Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary. Actually, I'm almost finished with it. Hunter wrote it when he was 22 and it shows, but in the way that a sapling has the blueprint for the whole tree in its little structure. In it, the very Hunter-like protagonist, Paul Kemp, runs around Puerto Rico doing very Hunter-like things, but there's something extra odd in there that isn't in anything else I've read...
2Report
Rated 5 starsThompson's underrated gem...
Thompson's thinly veiled self-acknowledged portrayal of a journalist - Paul Kemp - who leaves New York to go working for a folding newspaper, the San Juan Daily News - is a largely ignored piece of work. This is largely due to its pre-gonzo style that will alienate most of the fans who have been seduced by his later works - most notably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, there was much more to Thompson's methodical...
0Report
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
