RaveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksPaul Theroux has finally taken the plunge with Mother Land, a stunningly perceptive and wickedly funny autobiographical novel that will no doubt infuriate his family members and thrill his readers … The focal point of Mother Land is, of course, Mother — a cold, manipulative shrew fond of making hideously thick pea soup and telling her brood that their failings are ‘their own goddamned fault.’ Her shortcomings are infuriating and at times hilarious … Theroux skillfully captures the hazards of returning home in late middle age — the feelings of failure and defeat, the sense of déjà vu and returning to a childlike state, and the depressing realization that in witnessing a parent’s decline, one is getting a grim preview of one’s own impending fate.
