The Rum Diary (LibraryEdition) [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Christopher Lane (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2006

[This is the Audiobook CASSETTE Library Edition in vinyl case.]

A New York Times Notable Book of 1998

** Now a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, and Aaron Eckhart **

Begun in 1959 by a then 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 autobiographical hero, a young writer dreaming of Hemingway but stuck in a dead-end newspaper job, embarks on a carousing, hell-raising journey through the tropics. Along the way, he comes between a wild-spirited comrade and his temptress girlfriend and gets in the middle of a violent clash between the island culture and the encroaching American tourist values.

Exuberant and energetic, The Rum Diary is an outrageous, drunken romp in the spirit of Thompson's bestselling Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell's Angels.

Editorial Reviews

Review

''A remarkably full and mature first novel…A languid and lovingly executed book that reveals its emotional depths slowly.'' --Salon

''A great and an unexpected joy. . . reveals a young Hunter Thompson brimming with talent.'' --Philadelphia Inquirer

''At the core of this hard-drinking, hard-talking, hard-living man is a moralist, a Puritan, even an innocent. The Rum Diary gives us this side of him without apology . . . with a kind of pride.'' --Washington Post Book World

''Enough booze to float a yacht and enough fear and loathing to sink it.'' --New York Daily News

Thompson has [created] a raging, grubbily poetic, and galvanic persona who reacts to all that is rotten in the world with a compelling mix of self-aggrandizement and self-destruction...[The Rum Diary reveals] the early stage of his particular form of myth-making and the emergence of his distinctive voice.'' --Booklist

''Christopher Lane's relatively youthful but scratchy voice and his tone of petulance fit the teller of the story, Paul Kemp, who is already jaded in his early thirties.'' --AudioFile

About the Author

HUNTER S. THOMPSON (1937-2005) was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. His books on politics and society were regarded as groundbreaking among journalists, and he was celebrated as one of the early practitioners of an outraged form of irreverent and angry journalism that became known as ''gonzo'' journalism. His numerous articles for Rolling Stone and books like Hell's Angels and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas brought him wide recognition and cult-like status.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.; Unabridged edition (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786144351
• ISBN-13: 978-0786144358
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,900,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great novel, October 9, 2011

By 

mike - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rum Diary: A Novel (Paperback)

Great novel. Can't wait for the movie. You can definitely tell there's a lot of Gonzo in.this book by the good doctor himself may he rest in peace

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the movie, again, December 11, 2011

By 

Freaky Franky - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rum Diary: A Novel (Paperback)

As with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the book is definitely better than the movie. I wanted to read the Rum Diary before the Johnny Depp vehicle came out, and I wasn't disappointed. This is Hunter S. Thompson's fictional stab at the story of a New York reporter working for the ramshackle San Juan Daily and drinking himself into all sorts of situations. This early work doesn't quite have the zest of his later gonzo journalism, as embodied in Fear and Loathing, but there is still immense pleasure to be had from its well-crafted sentences and unhurried plot of drunkenness and debauchery in the tropical purgatory of the newspaper world, otherwise known as Puerto Rico. The real pleasure of this novel is in the acerbic observations of Paul Kemp, the fictional freelance hero, who has a sharp eye for mysterious woman, zanily corrupt locals and incorrigible coworkers, such as the newspaperman called Moberg, who, after a heavy night of drinking, is only able to find his car by smell - it stinks so much that he can smell it blocks away. If you're hungry for more tales of debauched journalism then you might want to check out another novel called Suction by Tony McGowan. While not quite Hunter S. Thompson (and who is?) it does take you on an enjoyably sordid tour of the Sydney tabloid wars of the 1980s.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoayble island drunkfest read, October 20, 2011

By 

PJY "pjsailor" (Cumming, Ga USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rum Diary: A Novel (Paperback)

Trying to describe this book is like trying to touch a wet oil painting without impact. It doesn't take much before it gets messy. I can tell you that the story is well told. I read it over a two day period. Any break in the day I read it. It was engaging and enjoyable. The book finds its rhythm early and takes us on a Caribbean misadventure of lust, double-crossing and just plain bad timing. The wanderlust of the islands is replaced by the seedy underpinnings of a boom town. While I enjoyed the book, it really didn't have a plot and the ending was a but abrupt. But then, that is the tale of the diary. This is a satisfying read I would recommend to anyone. I hope the upcoming movie does the book justice.