16 years since Hunter left us but his words live on forever, a fantastic gift to all that value the unvarnished truth. This is my reading copy of The Proud Highway, purchased in Denver back in 2005. It lasted through my undergraduate dissertation, MA and PhD on Hunter and his work. It is falling apart and the pages have yellowed with age.
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!