Product Description

Allie Fox is going to re-create the world. Abominating the cops, crooks, junkies and scavengers of modern America, he abandons civilization and takes the family to live in the Honduran jungle. There his tortured, messianic genius keeps them alive, his hoarse tirades harrying them through a diseased and dirty Eden towards unimaginable darkness. ‘An epic of paranoid obsession that swirls the reader headlong to deposit him on a mudbank of horror’ Christopher Wordsworth, Guardian.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34954 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

About the Author
Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1941, and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His subsequent novels include Picture Palace, winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction, The Mosquito Coast, and the hugely acclaimed, Kowloon Tong. His travel books include The Great Railway Bazaar and The Pillars of Hercules.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant and chilling
This is an absolutely fantastic novel. It works so well because Theroux refuses to let the reader make up their mind about whether to admire or detest the obsessive and maniacal central character, Allie Fox, as he plunges his family deeper and deeper into despair. His misguided search for what he sees as an alternative to the American dream is almost compelling, but the effect that this has on those who love him becomes increasingly disturbing as the plot unwinds. Theroux controls this balance brilliantly.

I read this when I was in Central America, but it's so absorbing that I could have been anywhere! Not a light-hearted read by any stretch, but the pages turn very quickly and I just couldn't put it down. Very strongly recommended.

Please read this book.
I was hooked from the very first page. The adventures inflicted upon this family by the brilliant and dangerous Allie Fox draws the reader into a world tainted by their desperate struggle for survival. But their lives are not in danger just because they are living in the jungle far away from any kind of civilisation, but also because Allie Fox, the father and husband, demands absolute loyalty through disaster after disaster. But this book is not as depressing and frustrating as it sounds. Personally I enjoyed the inventions and plans of Allie (the most fascinationg being the ice-machine!), obviously the result of the brilliant mind behind this book. An uneasy combination of reality and an element of this-could-never-happen-in-real-life makes this a book that will not fade away once closed, rather a book one starts reading from the beginning again once the last page had been turned.

What makes a good book for me is when I never want it to end. This is one of those books.

why can't all novels be like this one?
The Mosquito Coast is told through the eyes of Charlie Fox, a typical American boy. The story he tells us chronicles the "adventure" his family has when his father, Allie Fox takes them all to live in the Hounduran jungle. This is a stunning book which I have already read several times. The story is fantastic; a mixture of sarcastic humour, adventure and emotion. The character of Allie Fox (genius or goat: you decide,) is unique and hilarious and one you can just come back to again and again. I highly recommend this to anyone; all books should be as good as this.