I'm not one for commenting on public executions but it is hard not to notice this particular one over the past while. What to say...I keep coming back to a comment that Hunter made about Fred Exley's 1968 novel, A Fan's Notes. In a letter to Selma Shapiro of Random House, Hunter wrote - "There is something very good and right about it, hard to define...Very weird. I suppose it's the truth-level, a demented kind of honesty."
Totally Gonzo 
Great poster artistically and mood-wise but not the “feel” I got from the book. Everything was much sleazier-looking in Paul’s underworld of beleaguered journalists, sex maniacs, rummies and legions of “natives” who would just as soon slit your throat as say “Hola”. In “The Rum Diary”, even the palm trees wilting in the relentless sun are accusatory, in a desultory, yet malevolent way. Paul WISHES his room looked this good, first the “prison cell” he shares with a co-worker, and then the trashed-out beach shack he uses for his liaison. To the best of my knowledge, there was no shag carpeting in the 1950’s–not in the Caribbean anyway!