Today in our category is another work by an American author. “The Rum Diary” by Hunter Thompson may be familiar to you from the film adaptation of the same name with Johnny Depp in the title role. It is to the actor that the book owes its publication, but more on that later. Thompson began writing The Rum Diary in 1959 while working as a sports correspondent for the Puerto Rican newspaper The San Juan Star. Many of his colleagues later became prototypes of the novel’s characters. Unlike the journalist’s later works, there is a lot of fiction in the events of the Rum Diary. The story takes place in the small Puerto Rican town of San Juan, where aspiring journalist Paul Kemp (the author’s alter ego) is heading, tired of hypocritical New York and exhausted by the midlife crisis. He is attracted to the comfort and tranquility of American life, but he is not yet ready to give up the elusive vicious freedom. In the 60s and 70s, the author made several unsuccessful attempts to publish the novel and eventually gave up on it. The manuscript of the “Rum Diary” was found in the papers of Hunter Thompson by his friend Johnny Depp during the preparation for the filming of the film “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. The book was first published in 1998.
2021-05-18
