The rum diary the long lost novel

Summary: In 1959, a 22-year-old journalist named Hunter Thompson began his first novel, one that he hoped would "in a twisted way ... do for San Juan what Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises did for Paris." But somewhere along the line, the '60s, the Hell's Angels, Las Vegas, and Dick Nixon got in the way. Now, 40 years later, Thompson's tale of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s, is at last available to his legions of fans. In our exclusive interview, Megan Hoak asks the grand old man of gonzo journalism himself about his belated fiction debut, his favorite extracurricular activities, and the current atmosphere of fear and loathing in Washington, D.C.