The House of the Scorpion
Front cover of first edition, later printing with medal images
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| Author | Nancy Farmer |
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| Cover artist | Russell Gordon |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Young adult, Science fiction novel, Dystopian novel |
| Publisher | Atheneum Books |
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Publication date
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2002 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 380 pp (first edition, hard) |
| ISBN | (first edition, hard) |
| OCLC | 48796533 |
| [Fic] 21 | |
| LC Class | PZ7.F23814 Ho 2002 |
| Followed by | The Lord of Opium |
The House of the Scorpion (2002) is a science fiction young adult novel by Nancy Farmer. It is set in the future and mostly takes place in Opium, a country which separates the United States and Aztlán, formerly Mexico. The main character Matteo, or Matt, Alacrán, is a young clone of a drug lord of the same name, usually called "El Patrón." It is a story about the struggle to survive as a free individual and the search for a personal identity. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and was named a Newbery Honor Book and a Michael L. Printz Honor Book. In the speculative fiction field, it was a runner-up for the Locus Award in the young adult category and the Mythopoeic Award in the children's category.
The idea was originally from a short story that Farmer wrote for an anthology, but she withdrew and decided to expand it after realizing it was too closely tied to her own life. It is partially inspired by Farmer helping a Mexican man get to a city in Arizona after leaving Mexico, evidenced in the story through its theme of illegal immigration. The book is not as long as Farmer would have liked because of its young adult audience, and she was unable to swear because of publishing rules.
As The House of the Scorpion drew on so much of her childhood, Farmer found it difficult to write the sequel. The sequel, entitled The Lord of Opium, was finally published on September 3, 2013. The story begins a few hours after the final events of the first book.
The story is set in the country of Opium, a narrow strip of land between Mexico (now called Aztlán), and the United States, which is ruled by Matteo Alacrán, or El Patrón, an incredibly powerful drug lord who is over 140 years old. Opium consists of several drug-producing Farms, of which the Alacrán estate (which produces opium poppies) is the largest. The protagonist, Matt, is a clone of El Patrón. For the first six years of his life, he lives in a small house on the edge of the poppy fields with Celia, a cook working in El Patrón's mansion. When he is discovered by three children, Emilia and Steven and Maria, he smashes a window and jumps out of the house. Unaware of the danger of jumping barefoot onto smashed glass, he has to be carried to El Patrón's mansion and treated for his injuries. Matt is treated kindly until Mr. Alacrán, El Patrón's great-grandson, recognizes him as a clone, resulting in a few months where he is locked in a room and treated like an animal. When he finds out, El Patrón gives Matt clothes and his own room and commands everyone to treat him with respect. Matt is also given a bodyguard, Tam Lin, a reformed terrorist who becomes a father figure to him. He lives in the house for the next seven years and befriends María, a friendship that gradually blossoms into romance. Matt is kept in the dark about his identity, however, until a cruel joke reveals to him that he is a clone. Matt also discovers that all clones are supposed to be injected when "harvested" (born) with a compound that cripples their brains and turns them into little more than thrashing, drooling animals meant to donate organs. In denial, he convinces himself that El Patrón would not hire tutors for him and keep him entertained if he were intending to kill him, and that instead he must be wanted to run the country when El Patrón dies.
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