The RUM DIARY cover art

The RUM DIARY

A Novel

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The RUM DIARY

By: Hunter S. Thompson
Narrated by: Christopher Lane
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About this listen

**National Bestseller
**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.
Classics Crime Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Crime Exciting Caribbean Run Diary

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All stars
Most relevant
A fine first novel and so fine novel on any account, the pre Gonzo hunter bug it's there lurking unnamed in the shadows and the empty glasses.

Much underrated

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Rollercoaster throughout. Hunter S Thompsons done it again, a thrilling drug trip without the comedown

Fantastic

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really good however it takes some time to get started. Well worth a read though

Interesting...

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A lurching vision of a bygone time when dialogue mattered, and men were men. A dizzying first hand slice of US imperialism, wrapped in hamburgers and drenched in rum. If anyone drank as much as Paul Kemp these days they would be locked up for everyone elses safety. Hunter S Thompson's prose is delightful and satiric, peppered with dry similes. I wish people still conversed like this

Frantic and mesmerising

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Well written, but a story about vapid misogynistic white men moaning about problems of their own creation.

Leaves a bad taste in the mouth

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