Hunter S. Thompson- The Rum Diary

The Rum Diary

Bloomsbury

Hunter S. Thompson

Written from 1960-1961, Published in 1998

Other Hunter S. Thompson Reviews- Hell's Angels - Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - The Great Shark Hunt

“It was the kind of town that made you feel like Humphrey Bogart: you came in on a bumpy little plane, and, for some mysterious reason, got a private room with balcony overlooking the town and the harbor; then you sat there and drank until something happened.” 

The key detail that most book fans know about The Rum Diary is that it went unpublished for almost forty years, until professional Hunter S. Thompson fan Johnny Depp discovered the manuscript and convinced him to finally publish it. For Thompson's legion of fans this was great news, since though Thompson was a very prolific essay writer, with numerous collections available, his long-form work has always been somewhat thin on the ground; especially considering the longevity and popularity of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The question then became as to whether Rum Diary would actually be any good or not; since its original vanishing act occurred after numerous rejections from publishers- not a good sign- and it wasn't for another five years with the publication of Hell's Angels in Rolling Stone that Thompson's name was really made. With that in mind, I was a little paranoid that Rum Diary would be no better than an early curio.

Thankfully it seems like Johnny Depp knows a good manuscript when he reads it, because I found Rum Diary to be much more entertaining and polished than I expected- to the point where I'm scratching my head as to why it was originally rejected (with my only real theory being that publishers may have felt it to seem derivative of recent counter-cultural classics). Reading it over fifty-years later the tone of the narrative is pure (albeit-early) Hunter S, like his later work, built upon the close foundation of the author's own experiences. Thompson adapts his time spent in San Juan, Puerto Rico, turning himself into the character Paul Kemp; new employee at The Daily News, the only English language newspaper in the territory.

While struggling to adapt and survive in the tense Hispanic atmosphere, Kemp and his fellow outrageous American journalists get drunk and cause trouble throughout, constantly at odds with the locals in the aggressive post-colonial atmosphere. While Kemp struggles to establish himself and stay sane, he finds himself drawn to fellow journalist and drinker Yeamon, and his free-spirited girlfriend Chenault. Together the three of them delve further into the volatile nightlife, leading to dramatic and shocking events that finally drive them off the island. From a thematic viewpoint, the events of The Rum Diary fit perfectly within the range of past and future beatnik literature, to such a strong extent that it surprised me to contrast just how early this book was written compared to more famous and well-regarded examples. Primarily it's easy to compare it to Kerouac's On the Road, at least up to a certain extent when considering the activities that the characters get up to, but knowing Thompson's contempt for Kerouac it's easy to see how the two eventually differ, as The Rum Diary seems to me to have a far heavier focus on the inner moral turmoil of its central character.

It also puts Thompson's position with Charles Bukowski in a new light; Fear and Loathing was published the same year as Post Office, making them both icons of the 70's, but Rum Diary has ten years on that, as an example of the down and out thematic direction that newer authors had taken the examples of Fitzgerald. Thompson was well-known as an admirer of The Great Gatsby, and aspects of the character relationships and plot structure (the climactic revalations of helplessness in the face of the order of things) provide a template for Thompson's novel. The Rum Diary is not as impressive a stand-alone novel as these other examples; the fate of the newspaper is uninteresting, and the non-central characters interchangeable.

In conclusion, it was better late than never for The Rum Diary. Compelling, evocative and thoughtful, it would've been a massive shame had this remained in limbo. There are a number of other Thompson books that went unpublished due to his dissatisfaction with them, and I can only hope that they eventually see the light of day. Without Rum Diary, Thompson's career as a fiction writer is disappointingly thin, so the critical success of it suggests that fans have a lot to look forward to if a events conspire to expand his range of published novels.