After ten minutes of half-hearted listening I suspected I was in a den of hustlers. Most of them seemed to be waiting for the seven-thirty flight from Miami, which -- from what I gathered of the conversations -- would be bulging at the seams with architects, strip-men, consultants and Sicilians fleeing Cuba. He started to yell just as the girl went by and stopped a few feet up the aisle, looking around for a seat. "Here's one," I said, giving the old man a savage jerk. Before she could turn around the stewardess was on me, pulling at my arm. I believe this is labeled as fiction, but since Hunter S. Thompson mostly wrote about his experiences, The Rum Diary is probably about as fictional as say Kerouac's On The Road. The Rum Diary opens very promising, with snippets of office politics, masculine desperation and one’s search to find the meaning of life in a foreign land. For a book with nothing particularly interesting going on, Hunter S. Thompson got a way to keep me on the edge of my seat. The man’s got way with words. The only problem I encountered was, through the eyes of protagonist Paul Kemp, Thompson didn’t portray either the Puerto Ricans or the Americans in a very kind way. The expatriates were depicted as drunkards were irresponsible and unprofessional, while the natives were stereotyped as people who started fights with foreigners and cannot be trusted. Nothing is beautiful in Kemp’s eyes, except maybe “that little muff of brown hair standing out like a beacon against the white flesh of (Chenault’s) belly and thighs”.

I have no doubt Hunter Thompson could have been a decent and successful novelist. Instead he created and named his own branch (Gonzo Journalism) of the New Journalism Tom Wolfe and others had pioneered. He probably made the right decision if a lasting literary legacy was his goal, and I think it was. Happy," I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is on of those words, like Love, that I have never quite understood. Most people who deal in words don't have much fait in them and I am no exception -- especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they're scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence.' - Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary

Table of Contents

We sat there in silence until two men came out of an office on the other side of the room. One was the tall American I'd seen fighting in the street. The other was short and bald, talking excitedly and gesturing with both hands.

I walked for thirty minutes, looking into windows of stores that sold "Ivy Liga" clothes, peering into foul bars full of whores and sailors, dodging people on the sidewalks, thinking I would collapse at any moment if I didn't find a restaurant. In exchange for Sanderson's help in court, Paul takes on several writing assignments for a couple of Sanderson's clients. One of these requires Paul to travel to a small nearby island where a businessman is preparing to put up a resort. Afterward, Paul goes to St. Thomas to meet Yeamon and Chenault at carnival. Carnival is a loud and out of control party in town, so Paul and his friends go out to the pier to find a quieter party among the yachts. Someone suggests they go to a party at a house on the outskirts of town. When they arrive, Chenault goes off to dance with some of the locals. Before Paul and Yeamon know what is happening, Chenault is whisked off with some men who clearly have perverted intentions. Paul and Yeamon try to rescue Chenault, but are stopped by the locals. The next day, they go to the police, but find little help there. Paul and Yeamon decide to go home and hope for the best.

To me it seemed as though this was almost autobiographical in the sense that parts of HST are in different characters. Maybe the narrator is HST at the time he wrote this - not young and naive anymore, but experienced to know what his future held and learning his chops as he rolled along like a beach ball in the surf.