{"product_id":"book-ackm","title":"The RUM DIARY","description":"\u003ci\u003eThe Rum Diary\u003c\/i\u003e was begun in 1959 by a then-twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson. It was his first novel and he told his friend, the author William Kennedy, that \u003ci\u003eThe Rum Diary\u003c\/i\u003e would \"in a twisted way...do for San Juan what Ernest Hemingway's \u003ci\u003eThe Sun Also Rises\u003c\/i\u003e did for Paris.\" In Paul Kemp, the novel's hero, there are echoes of the young Thompson, who was himself honing his wildly musical writing style as one of the \"ill-tempered wandering rabble\" on staff at the \u003ci\u003eSan Juan Daily News\u003c\/i\u003e at the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I share a dark suspicion,\" Kemp says, \"that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles -- a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other -- that kept me going.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Rum Diary\u003c\/i\u003e is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery \u0026amp;amp; violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. \"It was a gold rush,\" says the author. \"There were naked people everywhere and we all had credit.\"","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster Audio","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49348159897904,"sku":"BDackm","price":23.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/242945-ackm-Square.jpg?v=1734213967","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-ackm","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}