by Paul Theroux
First published 2012
Ellis Hock stands in his small Massachusetts menswear store, dreaming of the four years he spent in Malawi as a Peace Corps volunteer. That African village on the remote Lower River was his Eden until family duty called him home to run the business. Now his wife has left him. He decides to return to the place where he was truly happy. The dusty village welcomes back the White Man with no fear of snakes. But everything has changed. The school he built lies in ruins. The church and clinic have vanished. Poverty and apathy grip the people he once knew. Hock believed this journey would be his salvation, a return to paradise. Instead he discovers that memory and reality tell different stories. His escape may have become his trap. Theroux weaves together past and present as Hock confronts what remains of his former life and what his return really means.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, african-literature, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, redemption
Setting: Lower River, Massachusetts, Malawi
Period: 20th-century
323 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt