The Lower River - Hardcover

Theroux, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241145325 ISBN 13: 9780241145326

Publisher: 28608-JO, 2012

Synopsis

Award winning writer Paul Theroux draws upon personal experience of living in Malawi in his eye-opening novel, about one man's return to an Africa he no longer recognises, The Lower River . 'In the small screen of the rear-view mirror skinny arms and small faces were sucked into the distance, jumping children and staring men, pinched by the receding road and the shaken curtains of elephant grass. From the dark water glinting at the end of trampled paths he saw that he was leaving the river behind, surfacing after months of holding his breath. 'The dust rose up behind the van, a brown rearing dust-snake. Each time he looked there was more dust, uncoiling in pursuit, but so like a dissolving mirage that he stopped looking back, and lifted his eyes from the mirror to the wider road ahead.' Ellis Hock never believed he would ever return to Africa - to his isolated village where he was happiest. He runs an old-fashioned menswear store in a small town in Massachusetts but still dreams of his Eden in Africa, the four years he spent in Malawi with the Peace Corps, cut short when he had to return to take over the family business. When his wife leaves him, taking the family home, and his daughter demands her share of his eventual will, he realizes that there is one place for him to go: back to Malawi, on the remote Lower River, where he will be happy again. Arriving at the dusty village he finds it transformed: the school he built is a ruin, the church and clinic are gone, and poverty and apathy have set in amongst the people. They remember him - the foreigner with no fear of snakes - and welcome him back. But is his new life, his journey back, an escape or a trap? Interweaving memory and desire, hope and despair, salvation and damnation, this is a hypnotic, compelling and brilliant return to a terrain no one has ever written better about than Theroux: the tragic stage of modern Africa, AIDS-ravaged and despairing in the face of creeping consumerism, greed and dependence. American travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his novels and collected short stories, My Other Life , The Collected Stories , My Secret History , The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro , A Dead Hand , Millroy the Magician , The Elephanta Suite , Saint Jack , The Consul's File , The Family Arsenal , The Mosquito Coast , and his works of non-fiction, including the iconic The Great Railway Bazaar are available from Penguin.

About this title

Book Description

HMH hardcover, 2012Previous ISBN: 978-0-547-74650-0

From the Back Cover

[Hock] knows he is ensorcelled by exoticism, but he can t help himself. And, as things go from bad to worse and the pages start to turn faster, neither can we. A. Entertainment Weekly
When he was a young man, Ellis Hock spent four of the best years of his life with the Peace Corps in Malawi. So when his wife of forty-two years leaves him, he decides to return to the village where he was stationed in search of the happiness he d been missing since he left. But what he finds is not what he expected. The school he built is a ruin, the church and clinic are gone, and poverty and apathy have set in among the people.
They remember Ellis and welcome him with open arms. Soon, however, their overtures turn menacing; they demand money and refuse to let him leave the village. Is his new life an escape or a trap?
Theroux s bravely unsentimental novel about a region where he began his own grand career should become part of anybody s education in the continent. Washington Post
The Lower River is riveting in its storytelling and provocative in its depiction of this African backwater, infusing both with undertones of slavery and cannibalism, savagery and disease. New York Times Book Review
[AU PHOTO] PAUL THEROUX s highly acclaimed novels include Hotel Honolulu and The Mosquito Coast. His travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, and The Happy Isles of Oceania.
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Edition details

• Publisher: 28608-JO
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0241145325
• ISBN 13: 9780241145326
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 323