Book Review: On the Plain of Snakes by Paul Theroux

Things have rather got away from me and I’m way behind on my book reviews, but there’s no time like the new year to start playing catch up, so here we go. I’ve read Paul Theroux before, and love his writing, so I was looking forward to reading On The Plain of Snakes. A book like this — a writer I enjoy in terrain with which I am unfamiliar — offered much and, on the whole, delivered. 

I know where Mexico is on the map. I know it has earthquakes and volcanoes. I know it has a drug culture and a fraught relationship with the US. That’s about it. And from this book I learned a whole lot more. 

Theroux begins by following that troublesome border between Mexico and its northern neighbour from the Pacific to the Gulf coast, crisscrossing from one side to the other before taking off and heading much deeper into the country. In terms of what I learned much of it was revelatory and his slightly world-weary eye for detail, especially in a country which comes across as violent and threatening, is second to none. 

If I had a gripe with the book it was that I felt it was a little too introspective and the focus too much on Theroux himself. We didn’t, in my view, need the short story that appeared in the middle, nor was i that interested in his own stint as a writing tutor in Mexico City.

But that's a personal thing. As I say, the writing was haunting, the sense of danger real. Mexico is a fascinating place by this account, but with its death cults, its gangs and its corrupt authorities, not one I’d ever visit.