The Mosquito Coast (novel)

The Mosquito Coast is the most successful novel by American author Paul Theroux. Published in 1981 it won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was the Yorkshire Post Novel of the Year. It was adapted into a 1986 film starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix.

Theroux wrote the novel whilst living in London. Although he is rumoured to have based the main character Allie Fox on himself, he denied this in an interview for Atlantic Unbound, saying he based the character on a number of people, including Pap, Huck Finn's father. It may be that Theroux was giving a portrait of a man with Bipolar Disorder.

The story is told from the viewpoint of fourteen-year-old Charlie Fox and centres around his father Allie, a brilliant inventor ("with nine patents, six pending") who becomes increasingly critical of American consumerism, education and culture: "We eat when we’re not hungry, drink when we’re not thirsty, buy what we don’t need, and throw away everything that’s useful. Don’t sell a man what he wants—sell him what he doesn’t want. Pretend he’s got eight feet and two stomachs and money to burn. That’s not illogical—it’s evil".

Allie decides to move his family from Hatfield, Massachusetts to escape the influence of America and the world war he fears is imminent, to enjoy a simpler life in La Mosquitia on the eponymous Mosquito Coast of Honduras. They travel in their pick-up truck to Baltimore and after giving away their truck to a tramp they board a banana boat to La Ceiba. During a violent storm Allie repairs a bilge pump and has several run-ins with Reverend Spellgood who is travelling with his family to his Mission in Honduras. His daughter Emily flirts with Charlie.

At La Ceiba Allie buys a tiny settlement called Jeronimo from a drunk German. They then travel up the coast via motor launch to Santa Rosa by which time Allie, through force of personality, has taken over the launch from its captain, Mr. Haddy and steers it up the Aguán River to Jeronimo. On arrival Allie inspires the local Creoles and Zambus and over the coming weeks they help him transform the overgrown settlement into a thriving community. He builds a huge ice-making machine called 'Fat Boy' powered by hydrogen and ammonia, and transports the ice it produces farther up the river to isolated tribesmen, only to find to his disgust that missionaries have already reached them and 'corrupted' them to the ways of the West. He then mounts another expedition to take ice overland into Olancho, but the ice melts on the journey. They arrive at a small settlement and meet a group of Indians and three 'skinny men' who they take to be slaves. On return to Jeronimo they find the settlement nearly deserted. A missionary, who earlier Allie had driven away, had returned and persuaded most of the Creoles to leave with him. Soon afterwards, the three 'slaves' from Olancho arrive with guns and threaten Allie's domain. He tricks them and locks them in 'Fat Boy' intending to freeze them to death, but their gunfire causes an explosion which kills the three gunmen, destroys Jeronimo and pollutes the river.