I had cooperated. I could not have refused. I was smitten with her, half in love but also afraid, because in my life (and she seemed to know this) I had not loved anyone without having been wounded. Love was power and possession, love caused pain: you were never more exposed than when you were in love, never more wounded; possession was an enslavement, something stifling.

His novel The Mosquito Coast was made into a film of the same name (1986). While there Theroux helped a political opponent of Prime Minister Hastings Banda escape to Uganda. He has since written a number of other travel books including descriptions of traveling by train from Boston to Argentina (The Old Patagonian Express) walking around the United Kingdom (The Kingdom By The Sea) kayaking in the South Pacific (The Happy Isles Of Oceania) visiting China (Riding the Iron Rooster) and traveling from Cairo to Cape Town (Dark Star Safari).

He is the father of British authors and documentary makers Louis Theroux and Marcel Theroux the brother of authors Alexander Theroux and Peter Theroux and uncle to the American actor and screenwriter Justin Theroux. Paul Edward Theroux (born April 10 1941) is an American travel writer and novelist whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar (1975).