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Photo by Nancy Ellison

For the past three months the Apple TV 10-part series of "The Mosquito Coast" has been in production, filming in California and Mexico, and thought the shoot has been suspended because of the corona virus emergency, progress has been great, and we're looking forward to resuming.

You might say "California and Mexico - what's the deal?' - because the novel takes place in Massachusetts and Honduras, and was filmed in Belize. Well, the whole business has been updated, under the supervision (and writing) of Neil Cross, a really wonderful script-writer who created the hit series "Luther." And Allie Fox is played by my nephew Justin Theroux. This is not nepotism - without my knowing he auditioned for the role, and from what I've seen of early episodes he's doing a great job. You might have seen him in "The Leftovers" in which his range and talent was superbly in evidence.

I began thinking of a novel about American castaways or exiles when I was on my "Old Patagonian Express" trip and in Costa Rica traveled part of the way on what was called the Mosquito Coast - named for the indigenous people, the Miskito Indians. I love stories of people stranded - like Robinson Crusoe - and their having to find survival strategies. This was in 1978. With this idea in mind I made a trip to Honduras in the summer of 1979, just looking... And it so happened that 1979 was a hard year for the economy - the Arab Oil Embargo, the Iranian hostage crisis, general alarm and despondency - and 18% interest rate at banks. People were saying, "I'm sick of this. I'd like to go somewhere else - just get out of this country."

From this atmosphere I thought: what if I wrote a book about a family - led by an inspirational father and helpful mother - which just ups and goes to Honduras. The father is an inventor. I also was shocked by the events in Jonestown, when a charismatic leader Jim Jones produced the mass suicide of his followers, over 900 deaths. That was the dark side of exile.

I wrote the book over the next two years, and it was first published in October 1981 in London, to approving reviews - one of the great satisfactions of my writing life.

— Paul Theroux