On the Plain of Snakes

Hardcover, 448 pages

Published April 3, 2019 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

ISBN:: 978-0-544-86647-8

(2 reviews)

Legendary travel writer Paul Theroux drives the entire length of the US–Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland, on the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind today’s brutal headlines.

Paul Theroux has spent his life crisscrossing the globe in search of the histories and peoples that give life to the places they call home. Now, as immigration debates boil around the world, Theroux has set out to explore a country key to understanding our current discourse: Mexico. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol looming to the north and mounting discord from within. With the same humanizing sensibility he employed in Deep South, Theroux stops to talk with residents, visits Zapotec mill workers in the highlands, and attends a Zapatista party …

Legendary travel writer Paul Theroux drives the entire length of the US–Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland, on the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind today’s brutal headlines.

Paul Theroux has spent his life crisscrossing the globe in search of the histories and peoples that give life to the places they call home. Now, as immigration debates boil around the world, Theroux has set out to explore a country key to understanding our current discourse: Mexico. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol looming to the north and mounting discord from within. With the same humanizing sensibility he employed in Deep South, Theroux stops to talk with residents, visits Zapotec mill workers in the highlands, and attends a Zapatista party meeting, communing with people of all stripes who remain south of the border even as their families brave the journey north.

From the writer praised for his “curiosity and affection for humanity in all its forms” (New York Times Book Review), On the Plain of Snakes is an exploration of a region in conflict.

2 editions

Sean Bala reviewed On the Plain of Snakes by Paul Theroux

Review of 'On the Plain of Snakes' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I love Theroux's travel writing and I was excited to read his newest book. He was the author that first kindled my love for travel literature. I haven't read his more recent books but I did know at nearly 80 years old that he was sticking a bit closer to home. The book is uneven in places and doesn't cohere as well as some of his earlier works like "The Great Railway Bazaar" or "The Old Patagonian Express." But "On the Plain of Snakes" still has Theroux's signature unsentimental and often insightful observations. There were moments in this book when I had to put the book down because of the power of the image or the story he told. The "Migrant's Prayer" scene really, really got to me. Theroux gives us a fascinating look at Mexico and Mexican identity that resists easy portrayal or categorization. It also includes his usual …

I love Theroux's travel writing and I was excited to read his newest book. He was the author that first kindled my love for travel literature. I haven't read his more recent books but I did know at nearly 80 years old that he was sticking a bit closer to home. The book is uneven in places and doesn't cohere as well as some of his earlier works like "The Great Railway Bazaar" or "The Old Patagonian Express." But "On the Plain of Snakes" still has Theroux's signature unsentimental and often insightful observations. There were moments in this book when I had to put the book down because of the power of the image or the story he told. The "Migrant's Prayer" scene really, really got to me. Theroux gives us a fascinating look at Mexico and Mexican identity that resists easy portrayal or categorization. It also includes his usual deep research into fiction and travel literature on Mexico from outsiders and insiders.

jeroenclemens

rated it

Nov. 21, 2020