 Begun in 1959 by a then-twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary details the life and events of Paul Kemp, a freelance journalist who finds himself at a critical turning point in his life while writing for a run-down newspaper in the Caribbean. Paul is challenged on many levels as he tries to carve out a more secure niche for himself amidst a group of lost souls all bent on self-destruction. Thompson delivers a potent story that pushes the sometimes brutal truth of human relations into your face in such a way that it would be absurd to not laugh.