The Old Patagonian Express was published by Hamish Hamilton in 1979. Where The Great Railway Bazaar moved eastward through exotic Asia, this book moves southward through the Americas — from the Boston subway to the end of the line in Patagonia, by every train connection available.
The journey takes Theroux through the American South (segregated bus stations, small-town decay), Mexico (crumbling colonial cities, desert), Guatemala and El Salvador (political violence simmering beneath touristic surfaces), Colombia, Ecuador, Peru (Machu Picchu from the train window, the altiplano), Bolivia, and Argentina to the final destination: Esquel, where the narrow-gauge railway from the coast terminates in wind and emptiness.
Theroux is at his most sardonic here: Latin American trains are slower, hotter, more crowded, and more liable to break down than Asian ones. The landscape is often monotonous. His fellow passengers are sometimes incomprehensible. The book’s humor is darker than Bazaar — Theroux is older, more disillusioned, more aware that travel does not lead to understanding but merely to displacement.
Collecting The Old Patagonian Express
First edition (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1979): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- UK first edition, fine in jacket: $60–$150
- US first edition (Houghton Mifflin): $30–$80