The Mosquito Coast

The Mosquito Coast By: Meghan White The Mosquito Coast is an adventure novel by Paul Theroux. It is an easy read, and you will be able to follow along through the whole thing, but you may find yourself skipping a few passages. The main character, Allie Fox, is very opinionated. He knows what he wants and goes after that. Being fed up with America, he moves the entire family-Charlie, Jerry, the twins, and his wife-all down to Honduras to create a utopia and make what God has already created better. Theroux grew up with an Italian mother and a French-Canadian father with 6 other siblings. He was born on April 10, 1941 in Medford, Massachusetts. Living in a chaotic home may have compelled him to write about a chaotic America. In a way, Allie’s family and Theroux’s family are very similar. Maybe not quite as chaotic, but they both have lots of kids. He never really played any sports and spent most of the 50’s writing. No one, not even Theroux himself knew that he wanted to be a writer. Allie Fox is the father, he is an inventor, a Harvard dropout, and an engineer. He earns his living from doing odd jobs for an asparagus grower, Tiny Polski. Charlie, his son, looks up to him; however, at the same time he wishes his father would lighten up in some situations. For example, his father doesn’t want him to go to school, but Charlie would like to get an education. The wife is very patient with Allie; she allows Allie Fox to continue with his absurd inventions. This novel says what a lot people are thinking. The Mosquito Coast talks quite a bit about how America is a bad place to live. America has savages, and it is almost impossible to find anything that is made in America. Allie Fox’s way to handle the savages is to leave them with an ice box. It is his own invention; he calls it a Fat Boy, and it makes ice from fire. Allie Fox rants through the whole book about how he is so smart, therefore he’ll be the first to go, and how other countries have slave labor and such. When they get to Honduras, Allie Fox buys a town called Jeronimo, and everything starts to fall into place and work out. The natives are okay with these strangers coming in and buying their town. They get jobs and shelter. The Mosquito Coast was not one of my favorites. It did turn out to be a little bit different than what I expected. I was hoping it would be less crazy. It would have been nice if it was just about the family moving to Honduras and why; and not as much of the dad yelling about how he wanted American made items. It got repetitive and a little annoying after a while. I wouldn’t recommend this novel to anyone. In my opinion it isn’t exactly a must read.