A Review: The Rum Diary

Title of Work: The Rum Diary
Author: Hunter S. Thompson
Format:
Published: 1998
Started:
Finished: 2022-09-26\

Posted: Goodreads
Rating: 4/5

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An amusing account of a vagrant — sorry, freelance — journalist’s drunkenness and dereliction set in Puerto Rico of the late ‘50s. Angry editors, stolen lovers, skulls bashed, cheeseburgers ordered and rum swilled in the spots the gringo expats could “get away from those disgusting gringo tourists”.

Kemp, HST’s pseudo-autobiographical narrator, is caught in the firm grip of that particular brand of existential anxiety when one has eclipsed 30 years old, looks around, and can find no semblance of security or stability beyond the current gig or scheme. He drinks, he fucks, he indulges, and he rides on the coattails of his raw talent and previous successes with big name magazines. There’s beauty in Kemp’s observations of this island paradise and the creatures who alight upon it but there’s sickness too; sickness of economic, political, and moral varieties.

I personally really enjoyed listening to this one. I love the cynicism and the little observations on the fringes of human character. The stuff at the edges that is otherwise lost in the blur and motion of life lived fast.