"Theroux possesses a fabulously nasty sense of humor." -- Stephen King,
New York Times Book Review
To those in her Cape Cod town, Mother is an exemplar of piety,
frugality, and hard work. To her husband and seven children, she is a
selfish, petty tyrant. She excels at playing her offspring against each
other. Her favorite, Angela, died in childbirth; only Angela really
understands her, she tells the others. The others include the officious
lawyer, Fred; the uproarious professor, Floyd; a pair of inseparable
sisters whose devotion to Mother has consumed their lives; and JP, the
narrator, a successful writer whose work she disparages. As she lives
well past the age of one hundred, her brood struggles with and among
themselves to shed her viselike hold on them.
Mother Land is a piercing portrait of how a parent's narcissism
impacts a family. While the particulars of his tale are unique, Paul
Theroux encapsulates with acute clarity and wisdom a circumstance that
is familiar to millions of readers.
"Paul Theroux ladles a steaming cup of dysfunctional-family chowder in
Mother Land." -- Vanity Fair
"An engrossing, emotionally tangled and often merciless examination of
family and self . . . Mother Land is a bittersweet, brutally frank
family saga that offers enough redemption to make the journey worth it."
-- Shelf Awareness
