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Theroux, Paul The Lower River ISBN 13: 9780241145326

The Lower River - Hardcover

 
9780241145326: The Lower River
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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.

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Review:

"It's a particular kind of frightening fun to watch evil flexing and spreading its leathery wings, and really feel it. "The Lower River" gives the reader just that." -- "The New York Review of Books" ""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. Theroux exposes paternalism in Hock's Peace Corps nostalgia, his 'sense of responsibility, almost a conceit of ownership.' That sense of responsibility, and Hock's modest contribution to the welfare of a people he was once genuinely fond of, has been replaced by a harsher mode of operation, run by coldhearted contractors living apart in impregnable compounds. 'I have to leave, ' Hock pleads. 'I'm going home.' To which the village headman replies, with chilling menace, 'This is your home, father.' " -- "New York Times Book Review" "[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"
"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"
"In this hypnotically compelling fiction, [Theroux] wrestles with questions of good intentions and harsh reality...A gripping and vital novel that reads like Conrad or Greene--in short, a classic." -- Booklist, starred "Theroux successfully grafts keen observations about the efficacy of international aid and the nature of nostalgia to a swift-moving narrative through a beautifully described landscape." -- PW, starred "Extraordinary...The suspense is enriched by Theroux's loving attention to local customs and his subversive insights...Theroux has recaptured the sweep and density of his 1981 masterpiece The Mosquito Coast. That's some achievement." -- Kirkus, starred "Theroux's latest can be read as straight-up suspense, but those unafraid of following him into the heart of darkness will be rewarded with much to discuss in this angry, ironic depiction of misguided philanthropy in a country dense with natural resources yet unable to feed its people." -- Library Journal

"It s a particular kind of frightening fun to watch evil flexing and spreading its leathery wings, and really feel it. "The Lower River" gives the reader just that." -- "The New York Review of Books" ""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. Theroux exposes paternalism in Hock s Peace Corps nostalgia, his sense of responsibility, almost a conceit of ownership. That sense of responsibility, and Hock s modest contribution to the welfare of a people he was once genuinely fond of, has been replaced by a harsher mode of operation, run by coldhearted contractors living apart in impregnable compounds. I have to leave, Hock pleads. I m going home. To which the village headman replies, with chilling menace, This is your home, father. " -- "New York Times Book Review" [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"
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"
"In this hypnotically compelling fiction, [Theroux] wrestles with questions of good intentions and harsh reality...A gripping and vital novel that reads like Conrad or Greene in short, a classic." -- Booklist, starred "Theroux successfully grafts keen observations about the efficacy of international aid and the nature of nostalgia to a swift-moving narrative through a beautifully described landscape." -- PW, starred"Extraordinary...The suspense is enriched by Theroux s loving attention to local customs and his subversive insights...Theroux has recaptured the sweep and density of his 1981 masterpiece The Mosquito Coast. That s some achievement." -- Kirkus, starred "Theroux's latest can be read as straight-up suspense, but those unafraid of following him into the heart of darkness will be rewarded with much to discuss in this angry, ironic depiction of misguided philanthropy in a country dense with natural resources yet unable to feed its people." -- Library Journal "

-It's a particular kind of frightening fun to watch evil flexing and spreading its leathery wings, and really feel it. The Lower River gives the reader just that.- -- The New York Review of Books -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. Theroux exposes paternalism in Hock's Peace Corps nostalgia, his 'sense of responsibility, almost a conceit of ownership.' That sense of responsibility, and Hock's modest contribution to the welfare of a people he was once genuinely fond of, has been replaced by a harsher mode of operation, run by coldhearted contractors living apart in impregnable compounds. 'I have to leave, ' Hock pleads. 'I'm going home.' To which the village headman replies, with chilling menace, 'This is your home, father.' - -- New York Times Book Review -[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
-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
-In this hypnotically compelling fiction, [Theroux] wrestles with questions of good intentions and harsh reality...A gripping and vital novel that reads like Conrad or Greene--in short, a classic.- -- Booklist, starred -Theroux successfully grafts keen observations about the efficacy of international aid and the nature of nostalgia to a swift-moving narrative through a beautifully described landscape.- -- PW, starred -Extraordinary...The suspense is enriched by Theroux's loving attention to local customs and his subversive insights...Theroux has recaptured the sweep and density of his 1981 masterpiece The Mosquito Coast. That's some achievement.- -- Kirkus, starred -Theroux's latest can be read as straight-up suspense, but those unafraid of following him into the heart of darkness will be rewarded with much to discuss in this angry, ironic depiction of misguided philanthropy in a country dense with natural resources yet unable to feed its people.- -- Library Journal

From the Back Cover:

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.

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  • PublisherHamish Hamilton
  • Publication date2012
  • ISBN 10 0241145325
  • ISBN 13 9780241145326
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages336
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