If you’ve heard of Hunter S. Thompson, the plot of The Rum Diary will come as no surprise: a hard-drinking immoral reporter stumbles through a series of wild adventures. Thompson creates a ‘trouble in paradise’ story and shows no shortage of skill in building a gripping, entertaining and believable story which portrays the tensions between the Puerto Rican community and the ex-patriate journalists of the San Juan Star. The Rum Diary was ‘lost’, buried in Thompson’s house and only published forty years after it was written and Thompson was established as the Gonzo hell-raiser in chief.

The Rum Diary is seen as a a roman-a-clef and I think that’s pretty accurate since Thompson himself said:

‘Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you’re writing about before you alter it.’

Paul Kemp, the protagonist of The Rum Diary, arrives in San Juan in the late 1950’s, when tourism is beginning to boom, a town where all the beautiful girls are willing to have sex with anyone but him and his would be stellar career is being pulled into the quicksand of a failing newspaper. He falls into a life of hard drinking, finding free rum easy to come by at the copious press parties, trying to delay the contemplation of being over the hill at thirty-something. Kemp’s pursuit of journalistic hedonism is a great party to crash but deep in his side is the thorn of the knowledge that the newspaper he works for is terrible and could quite easily fold, leaving him practically destitute in a foreign country. There is a sense of drunkenly mellow passivity, that Kemp feels like he has failed and is now at the top of a downward slide. That’s not to say that this book isn’t funny, it’s laugh out loud funny (I had many odd looks on the bus while reading this). The Rum Diary contains more stamina, imagination and passion than some of Thompson’s later work.

It seems at first to just be a decadent romp is actually much more, and those who dismiss it with in the first few pages will certainly lose out. It’s a tale of the outsider, like a lot of Thompson’s work is but this in particular has a truth to it that is hard to shake unlike some of the more extreme situations that can be found between the covers of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. It was written at a point in Thompson’s life where he did face the prospect of being utterly broke and friendless.

Is this a modern classic? That very much depends on your opinion of Thompson. He’s like Marmite: you either love him or loathe him. For me, The Rum Diary is a classic example of a great first novel but it is not a firm classic. Basically, this is a borderline case. I would recommend it cautiously: if you are likely to be upset by reading about someone who is living Kemp’s decadent lifestyle then this book really isn’t for you. On the other hand if you are interested in an intriguing and wryly amusing life of an outsider coming to terms with the consequences of his choices then crash his party and enjoy.

In We Need To Talk about Kevin, in which Kevin carries out a school shooting, Eva writes to her estranged husband asking is it my fault, or yours, or his? She is trying to work out just how much responsibility to take for Kevin’s horrific actions.

The school shooting is not actually the main focus of this novel, instead it focuses on the relationship between Kevin and his parents, as well as between Eva and Franklin. It’s an epistolary novel, which gives it that confessional feel. Eva keeps writing to Franklin, whose voice is absent from the novel, probably because she has to do it, writing as therapy. The fact that having a baby is purported to be the happiest time of anyone’s life is explored and roundly debunked in this novel as Eva describes the trials of maternity and the traumatic impact it can have on a marriage.

One strength of this novel that Eva does not always inspire empathy in the reader. Her sense of defeat builds from Kevin being an infant, when breastfeeding becomes a painful trail rather than a bonding experience between mother and child. She goes on to paint a portrait of Kevin as a very disturbed, and indeed disturbing, child and teen who vindictively hits out at anyone who, according to Eva, he thinks deserves it. It seems as though everything that can go wrong in Kevin’s upbringing does.

I found the characterisation difficult to get my head around in this novel. Kevin is painted as a sociopathic all the way through, as though all of his actions are inevitable when actually, in the from a psychology stand point, it’s really difficult and largely undesirable to diagnose a small child as a sociopath, lest he live up to the label you give him. Eva is only about three cups of coffee and and a cigarette away from being the stereotypical neurotic mother. Franklin is almost cartoonish in his attempts to appease Kevin, to be his friend and engage with him.

Despite these flaws, it is still a very well pitched novel and it’s very gritty without being too graphic, although there are moments that I will always think of when I think about this book. I don’t think that most readers will come away from the book without an opinion of why Kevin is how he is.

Is it because Eva didn’t really want a baby? Maybe it’s because she couldn’t bond with Kevin after he was born? Or perhaps it’s because she wanted a career? Or society is to blame somehow? The scariest option of course being that was just Kevin born inherently evil?

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In The Lake, Chihiro and Nakajima, both of whom are damaged people, meet by chance as they can see each other from their respective balconies. Chihiro is trying to cope with the loss of her mother, by remembering who her mother was as the majority of people would. Nakajima’s problems are more complex and as the story unfolds and their relationship deepens, both reader and Chihiro find out the truth of what happened to him.

Some people have called this an off-beat love story, but I don’t think that’s what it is in the slightest. They come together at first because they can’t stand to be alone anymore. Nakajima finds it difficult to be around other people but with Chihiro he feels comfortable. Chihiro on the other hand is in the stage of grief where physical intimacy is not something she particularly wants or needs and she is drawn to Nakajima’s relaxed, fluid approach to life. They’re together because without the other, each one of them would fall apart. Love does begin to blossom between them but it’s their own distinct and rather charming kind of love.

There were times when I found Chihiro to be self-absorbed and on reflection, those instances were where she just needed to grow up a little bit and be a little more aware of those around her. Her growth as a character is great because by the end of the novel, she’s becoming a young woman you could have an interesting conversation with, not a self centered snob as she sometimes appears. Nakajima on the other hand is very interesting from his entrance in the story. He’s just one of those characters who has reach a place in his life where he could go one of two ways; collapsing in on himself and becoming completely socially withdrawn or grasping the nettle and taking steps towards really living opposed to just existing.

The star of this book is Yoshimoto’s writing, hands down. I kept reading sections out-loud to my friends and family, I even phoned my best friend to read something I knew she would appreciate. All of her books are beautifully written and the publisher has found a very gifted translator in  Michael Emmerich.

Yoshimoto’s precise prose creates a very intimate protrait of Japan, one that lays contrary to the image a lot of people hold. The translation is beautiful and I hope, as I always do, that it has stayed as close to the original work as possible. I got this from Net Galley and so I couldn’t read the back of the book, which apparently includes spoilers. I had the luxury of reading this gently paced book and reaching its conclusion without it being a suspicion confirmed. I’ve deliberately avoided spoilery aspects of the discussion which I am BURSTING to have with someone else who has read this book, I might have to go seek someone out on GoodReads.

This is a quick read, the copy I had access to was 188 pages, although it is listed as being slightly longer on some websites. It is a sad read however, it deals with some of the weightier issues in life and it may not reach a conclusion that is useful to you if you are looking to literature to heal you, as many people do. I would recommend it to people who are looking for an interesting, quirky look at grief and how people interact with each other, but not to someone who is currently in an acute state of grief.

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