The Mosquito Coast
by Paul Theroux
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SOON TO BE AN APPLE TV+ SERIES STARRING JUSTIN THEROUXAN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER• "A gripping adventure story."—New York Times Book Review
The paranoid and brilliant inventor Allie Fox takes his family to live in the Honduran jungle, determined to build a civilization better than the one they've left. Fleeing from an America he sees as mired in materialism and conformity, he hopes to rediscover a purer life. But his utopian experiment takes a dark turn when his obsessions lead the show more family toward unimaginable danger.
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brianjungwi Ideas for the Mosquito Coast came from his trip during The Old Patagonian Express
bluepiano A non-fiction book with a story and characters so like those of Mosquito Coast that I've often wondered whether Little's is the true story that Theroux supposedly based his novel upon. (Also published under the even more cringe-making title Survive!)
Iudita Similar themes
Member Reviews
A book that mirrors its journey into the jungle as it slowly falls apart like the main cast. The premise is wonderful; the most American American, the epitome of self reliance and independence, has to retreat from America to return to a more true way of life, away from the corrupt remnants of a once great nation. What that way of life is and how it's to be lived is what falls apart during the course of the book, in obvious allusions to those who dream those ideals back home. There's a separate man vs religion theme throughout the book as well, but less clear in purpose.
Unfortunately it can't quite pull the threads together and they instead fall apart into a near parody of itself as the father's insanity and purity spiral continues, show more becoming more a Kurtz in the jungle. The more elevated threads seem lost in the end to pure antipathy for domineering father figures as the story limps home and you're left wondering if it was really just intended as a character portrait of insanity through the eyes of the son, any more clever threads left rotting on the jungle floor. show less
Unfortunately it can't quite pull the threads together and they instead fall apart into a near parody of itself as the father's insanity and purity spiral continues, show more becoming more a Kurtz in the jungle. The more elevated threads seem lost in the end to pure antipathy for domineering father figures as the story limps home and you're left wondering if it was really just intended as a character portrait of insanity through the eyes of the son, any more clever threads left rotting on the jungle floor. show less
Allie Fox, inventor, is disappointed in his home country, the USA. Disappointed by its materialism, its markets flooded with cheap consumer goods of bad quality, the lack of craftsmanship. So he decides to take his wife, his two sons and his twin daughters far away. To the Mosquito-coast in Honduras, an inaccessible and remote area. And to start a new life there.
Their adventures in the jungle are related to us by his eldest son Charlie, 14 years old, who admires his father but at the same time feels uneasy about him, embarrassed at times. Because of the way outsiders react to him.
I thought it was interesting to see how in a way Allie turns exactly into the very thing he despises. Despite his anti-American feelings, he behaves like a show more typical western colonialist disrespecting local people and culture, local knowledge about nature and even disrespecting nature and human life. He turns out to be a raving dictator, and his family is like a closed sect. Those who dare to challenge his authority are being threatened to be cast away from the family and the love of the family.
A critical note concerns the mother in this story. I thought this character to be rather unbelievable. It's quite unclear why she follows Allie with such devotion and without questions asked. She is a stereotypical obedient woman without a mind of her own. Does such a woman exist? show less
Their adventures in the jungle are related to us by his eldest son Charlie, 14 years old, who admires his father but at the same time feels uneasy about him, embarrassed at times. Because of the way outsiders react to him.
I thought it was interesting to see how in a way Allie turns exactly into the very thing he despises. Despite his anti-American feelings, he behaves like a show more typical western colonialist disrespecting local people and culture, local knowledge about nature and even disrespecting nature and human life. He turns out to be a raving dictator, and his family is like a closed sect. Those who dare to challenge his authority are being threatened to be cast away from the family and the love of the family.
A critical note concerns the mother in this story. I thought this character to be rather unbelievable. It's quite unclear why she follows Allie with such devotion and without questions asked. She is a stereotypical obedient woman without a mind of her own. Does such a woman exist? show less
My mom and I just went on a long road trip to visit her family and this was one of the audiobooks we listened to. We were HOOKED. The father is an eccentric version of my father, so the ranting was perfectly worded, colorful versions of conversations with my dad. I like that this family went against the grain of society and took all the changes of living among a new landscape and culture in stride.
We speculated the story to take place in the 60s, based on the TV show references, the mother's essentially passive behavior, and the ease of immigrating to a central American country (pre-civil war).
I can understand how the content would be irritating to many people, but make others want to high-five the father after each of his rants. My mom show more and I are in the latter. We like the extreme cynicism mixed with profound insight. It makes much of the book hilarious, meanwhile you get to learn a little bit of Honduras and have an outdoor adventure. show less
We speculated the story to take place in the 60s, based on the TV show references, the mother's essentially passive behavior, and the ease of immigrating to a central American country (pre-civil war).
I can understand how the content would be irritating to many people, but make others want to high-five the father after each of his rants. My mom show more and I are in the latter. We like the extreme cynicism mixed with profound insight. It makes much of the book hilarious, meanwhile you get to learn a little bit of Honduras and have an outdoor adventure. show less
I started reading this book in 2016 and got about 2/3 of the way through. Then for some reason I now can’t remember, I put it aside.
When I picked it up again a couple of days ago, there was no need to read any of it. The awfulness of the circumstances and the madness of Allie were burned into my brain.
There’s a tv show heavily adapted from this novel now. Well, it would have to be heavily adapted since Allie is completely unappealing. I think most of us can understand frustration and even disgust with some aspects of US society and culture. His desire to live off the grid is believable as well. But then Allie goes way, way off the deep end. He becomes delusional and subjects his family to all sorts of cruelty and craziness. And it show more goes on and on, as he takes them further into the Guatemalan wilderness.
I didn’t “like” this book, but I found it compelling. show less
When I picked it up again a couple of days ago, there was no need to read any of it. The awfulness of the circumstances and the madness of Allie were burned into my brain.
There’s a tv show heavily adapted from this novel now. Well, it would have to be heavily adapted since Allie is completely unappealing. I think most of us can understand frustration and even disgust with some aspects of US society and culture. His desire to live off the grid is believable as well. But then Allie goes way, way off the deep end. He becomes delusional and subjects his family to all sorts of cruelty and craziness. And it show more goes on and on, as he takes them further into the Guatemalan wilderness.
I didn’t “like” this book, but I found it compelling. show less
In the father at the heart of 'The Mosquito Coast', Theroux has crafted one of the great characters in modern literature. He is difficult, head-strong, combative, and exceedingly persuasive. He drives his family to both love and loathe him, and he manages to convince many, many people that he is right about things; worse still, he most often is. His downfall is inevitable, but thrilling to discover all the same.
Although The Mosquito Coast is fictional, written from the perspective of 13-year-old Charlie Fox, it has the feel of a memoir of a terrible childhood, along the lines of [b:The Glass Castle|7445|The Glass Castle|Jeannette Walls|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1400930557s/7445.jpg|2944133]. Charlie's matter-of-fact telling of the hardships he and his family face is interspersed with vivid descriptions of their surroundings and, for lack of a better term, adventures.
While Charlie's father, Allie, is proud of the fact that he has never spanked his children or struck them in anger, he bullies the entire family -- nameless "Mother," Charlie, 10-year-old Jerry, and 6-year-old twins, Clover and April -- into submission. He keeps the children show more out of school, because he sees schools as useless. He uproots the family from their home on a Massachusetts farm, where he works as a handyman and inventor, because he believes the United States is on the verge of civil war and collapse. They travel to Honduras on a banana boat, where he purchases an abandoned "town" and sets about building a settlement, complete with a machine of his own invention that produces ice with the use of fire.
Allie is his own special brand of crazy, railing against American civilization, Christianity (while surrounded by unfriendly missionaries), and incurious savages. He believes himself to be smarter than everyone else he encounters, but also challenges anyone who threatens to best him mentally or physcially to a push-up challenge. He convinces everyone that he's working for them, while serving his own selfish desires. Through various incidents, Charlie deciphers his father's craziness, but is unable to escape it, especially after his father convinces the entire family that America has been destroyed, that there is nowhere else left to go. But the Central American jungle refuses to bend to Allie's strong will, and the man begins to unravel, dragging the entire family on his downward spiral. It's all heartbreaking and fascinating, and at the end, I'm relieved that it's all the work of [a:Louis Theroux|92848|Louis Theroux|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1273540184p2/92848.jpg]'s father's imagination.
Edit: The film adaptation, starring Harrison Ford & River Phoenix, was really well cast. Ford does a great job of portraying the manic energy of Allie Fox, but the script omitted some of his physical bullying. He's controlling in the movie, but even worse in the book. The settings were perfectly brought to life. Overall, a good adaptation. show less
While Charlie's father, Allie, is proud of the fact that he has never spanked his children or struck them in anger, he bullies the entire family -- nameless "Mother," Charlie, 10-year-old Jerry, and 6-year-old twins, Clover and April -- into submission. He keeps the children show more out of school, because he sees schools as useless. He uproots the family from their home on a Massachusetts farm, where he works as a handyman and inventor, because he believes the United States is on the verge of civil war and collapse. They travel to Honduras on a banana boat, where he purchases an abandoned "town" and sets about building a settlement, complete with a machine of his own invention that produces ice with the use of fire.
Allie is his own special brand of crazy, railing against American civilization, Christianity (while surrounded by unfriendly missionaries), and incurious savages. He believes himself to be smarter than everyone else he encounters, but also challenges anyone who threatens to best him mentally or physcially to a push-up challenge. He convinces everyone that he's working for them, while serving his own selfish desires. Through various incidents, Charlie deciphers his father's craziness, but is unable to escape it, especially after his father convinces the entire family that America has been destroyed, that there is nowhere else left to go. But the Central American jungle refuses to bend to Allie's strong will, and the man begins to unravel, dragging the entire family on his downward spiral. It's all heartbreaking and fascinating, and at the end, I'm relieved that it's all the work of [a:Louis Theroux|92848|Louis Theroux|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1273540184p2/92848.jpg]'s father's imagination.
Edit: The film adaptation, starring Harrison Ford & River Phoenix, was really well cast. Ford does a great job of portraying the manic energy of Allie Fox, but the script omitted some of his physical bullying. He's controlling in the movie, but even worse in the book. The settings were perfectly brought to life. Overall, a good adaptation. show less
"Must be nice to be king of your own country"
By sally tarbox on 17 May 2017
Format: Paperback
Featuring an unforgettable lead-character, this was a pretty good read.
13 year old Charlie Fox narrates the account of his family's exodus from Massachusetts - where his eccentric inventor father decries the American way of life- for the jungles of Honduras. Here, Allie Fox plans on a simpler way of life, with himself and his inventions firmly at the centre. Even religion cannot be allowed to put him in second place: " 'Pray if you must', said Father, 'but I'd rather you listened to me.' His children's achievements are always denigrated lest they detract from his own.
But as the adventure starts to pall, the children realise their father isn't show more infallible...
Really enjoyed this to start with but felt it went on a tad too long, with the floods, vultures and an increasingly irrational Father. But certainly a memorable novel. show less
By sally tarbox on 17 May 2017
Format: Paperback
Featuring an unforgettable lead-character, this was a pretty good read.
13 year old Charlie Fox narrates the account of his family's exodus from Massachusetts - where his eccentric inventor father decries the American way of life- for the jungles of Honduras. Here, Allie Fox plans on a simpler way of life, with himself and his inventions firmly at the centre. Even religion cannot be allowed to put him in second place: " 'Pray if you must', said Father, 'but I'd rather you listened to me.' His children's achievements are always denigrated lest they detract from his own.
But as the adventure starts to pall, the children realise their father isn't show more infallible...
Really enjoyed this to start with but felt it went on a tad too long, with the floods, vultures and an increasingly irrational Father. But certainly a memorable novel. show less
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Author Information
113+ Works 32,260 Members
Paul Edward Theroux was born on April 10, 1941 in Medford, Massachusetts and is an acclaimed travel writer. After attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst he joined the Peace Corps and taught in Malawi from 1963 to 1965. He also taught in Uganda at Makerere University and in Singapore at the University of Singapore. Although Theroux has show more also written travel books in general and about various modes of transport, his name is synonymous with the literature of train travel. Theroux's 1975 best-seller, The Great Railway Bazaar, takes the reader through Asia, while his second book about train travel, The Old Patagonian Express (1979), describes his trip from Boston to the tip of South America. His third contribution to the railway travel genre, Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China, won the Thomas Cook Prize for best literary travel book in 1989. His literary output also includes novels, books for children, short stories, articles, and poetry. His novels include Picture Palace (1978), which won the Whitbread Award and The Mosquito Coast (1981), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Theroux is a fellow of both the British Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Geographic Society. His title Lower River made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012. Currently his 2015 book, Deep South , is a bestseller. (Bowker Author Biography) Paul Theroux is the distinguished author of numerous award-winning books, including "The Mosquito Coast," "Kowloon Tong," & "Half Moon Street." (Publisher Provided) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1980
- People/Characters
- Allie Fox; Charlie Fox; Jerry Fox
- Important places
- Honduras; Central America
- Related movies
- The Mosquito Coast (1986 | IMDb)
- Dedication
- To "Charlie Fox," whose story this is and whose courage showed me that the brave cannot be killed. With grateful thanks for many hours of patient explanation and good humor in the face of my ignorant questioning. May he find ... (show all)the peace he deserves on this safer coast. Naksaa - P.T.
- First words
- We drove past Tiny Polski's mansion house to the main road, and then the five miles into Northampton, Father talking the whole way about savages and the awfulness of America - how it got turned into a dope-taking, door lockin... (show all)g, ulcerated danger zone of rabid scavengers and criminal millionaires and moral sneaks.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It was glorious even here, in this old taxicab with the radio playing.
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