The Lower River

Every sentence has you on the edge of your seat in this story of a divorced American man’s move to Malawi. Theroux’s emotional acuity is as intense as the setting.

From the book: “The snake did not move — that is, it remained coiled. But then its pear-shaped head tilted, it’s yellow eyes flickered and widened, and it seemed almost imperceptibly to swell…as though it was visibly thinking.”