"An Impressive and disturbing vision of the American psyche."--Washington Post Book World

From legendary writer Paul Theroux, an international bestseller that is a spellbinding adventure story of an American family that rejects its homeland and tries to find a happier life in the jungles of Central America.

The paranoid and brilliant inventor Allie Fox uproots his family from their New England farm to live in the Honduran jungle, determined to build a civilization better than the one they've left. An individualist, Allie sees modern America as wasteful, immoral, and messy. Fleeing from materialism and conformity, he hopes to rediscover a purer life.

Told by fourteen-year-old Charlie Fox, who observes his father with a mixture of love, astonishment, and ultimately horror, The Mosquito Coast is a twisted Swiss Family Robinson or an ironic take on Robinson Crusoe. For as Allie becomes ever more lost to reality, this utopian experiment takes a dark turn as his obsessions lead the family toward unimaginable danger.