The Lower River by Paul Theroux: book review

The Lower River: A Novel of Africa (2012) is set in the village of Malabo, Lower River, in Malawi.

The story begins in Medford, northwest of downtown Boston on the Mystic River in Massachusetts where Ellis Hock has a clothing business, a marriage to Deena, and a daughter Chicky. But both his marriage and his business are failing, and Chicky treats her father with contempt.

At 62 years of age, Hock turns his thoughts to Lower River in Malawi, Africa, where he once worked as a teacher 35 years ago for four years. They were the best years of his life.

He returns to the place he loved, to Lower River, but things are not the same. The school he built is in ruins and closed, the village has nothing and the people are apathetic. Some of the elders remember and some of the grandchildren of the elders have heard of this white man, Ellis the snake man, the only white man who has ever lived in the village.

Now, on his return, he is just the old man. Even Gala, the woman he once desired, is different.

‘’The Lower River was as the people on the banks said – a snake, a poisonous snake.’’

Zizi, a teenage girl, is his only friend. Was Hock selfish to befriend this young naive girl? In his relationship with her, did he go too far?

When Hock loses his money, he loses his name, his status, and his power. He is in great danger.

This well-written novel by the author of The Mosquito Coast is sinister, dark, and forboding, designed to suspensefully shock readers through its menacing themes of creeping consumerism, foreign aid corruption, greed, and resentment.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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