Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Overview... would-be novelist writing for a struggling newspaper in Puerto Rico. Alas, Paul seems to do more drinking and getting himself into jams than writing articles. Then again, the type of gritty stories that he wants to write about the poverty he sees in San Juan are repeatedly shot down by his editor, who doesn’t want to print anything that might hurt tourism. Fortunately, there’s plenty of good, strong rum to help make Paul forget that his life doesn’t seem to be moving forward.
Personality... talented but unfocused. Paul knows he’s not fulfilling his potential as a writer, but buckling down to work isn’t his strong suit. He’d much rather drink and pine after the beautiful woman, Chenault, that he saw skinny-dipping soon after arriving in Puerto Rico. But Chenault is already engaged to a man that soon hires Paul for some side projects, so it won’t be easy to win her heart, either. Sounds like another good reason to take a swig of rum.
Get to Know him in...
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Tired of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, itinerant journalist Paul Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local San Juan newspaper run by the downtrodden editor Lotterman. Adopting the rum-soaked lifestyle of the late '50s version of Hemingway's ?The Lost Generation, Paul soon becomes entangled with a very attractive American woman, Chenaults and her fiance Sanderson, a businessman involved in shady property development deals. It is within this world that Kemp ultimately discovers his true voice as a writer and integrity as a man.
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The irreverent writer's long lost novel, written before his nonfiction became popular, chronicles a journalist's enthusiastic, drunken foray through 1950s San Juan.
