The Mosquito Coast

From Paul Theroux, an international bestseller following an American family that abandons their New England farm to seek a better life in the Honduran jungle. Allie Fox, a paranoid and brilliant inventor, uproots his family determined to build a civilization he sees as superior to modern America, which he views as wasteful, immoral, and messy. Fleeing materialism and conformity, he pursues what he believes will be a purer existence. Narrated by his fourteen-year-old son Charlie Fox, the novel presents Allie's utopian experiment through a mixture of love, astonishment, and horror. As Allie loses touch with reality, his obsessions drive the family toward danger, transforming the venture into something darker. The Washington Post Book World describes it as "an impressive and disturbing vision of the American psyche."