The Rum Diary
Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson,The Rum Diaryis a 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.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
4mentions
4people
2010–2021years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Rum Diary by Hunter Thompson was also absorbing.
- I think it's an interesting topic, more people should want to learn about life in other circumstances, so I'm not sure why you were downvoted.
Maybe just because no one has come by with an answer.
Not that it's what you're looking for, but this reminds me of Kacey Musgraves, who has some anti-country songs about the pain and false promises of small town life in a changing America. Merry Go Round and Blowin Smoke especially.
There's some social psychology research on "sense of place" that covers how drawn people are to staying in the place where they grew up, which makes it hard for some to leave. The Rum Diary (the novel, can't vouch for the film) is kind of a meditation on this too, though about Puerto Rico instead of the rural midwest.
- Agreed on books over the movies. First time I watched F & L I turned it off. Eventually I read the book which is fantastic. I did go back and watch the movie then and liked it more but the book is much, much better. As for The Rum Diary I'd suggest the book first because there are a few major character changes between it and the movie and it was harder to follow the book after seeing the movie. Unlike F & L the movie for Rum Diary is on par with the book in my opinion.
- Hunter seemed to be heavily inspired by Hemingway at this point in his career.
When Hemingway started out, he worked for the Toronto Star (another Canadian newspaper). He wrote his first novel during this time: The Sun Also Rises, about expatriates living in Paris.
Hunter decided to apply to a Canadian newspaper after admittingly not being familiar with it. Then not long after he wrote his first novel - The Rum Diary - which was heavily inspired by Hemingway's first, about expatriates living in Puerto Rico.
