[2] The author worked in Malawi from 1963 to 1965 with the United States Peace Corps, before being deported for public criticism of dictator Hastings Banda.

In an introduction to the novel for the German edition, Theroux revealed that the two main characters, an insurance salesman and a revolutionary activist, were two opposing sides of his own personality.

[5] The story concerns Calvin Mullet from Hudson, Massachusetts, a recently divorced insurance salesman working in Malawi; and Marais, a white leader of a guerrilla army intent on overthrowing the government of the country.

Calvin is based in a brothel in the capital Blantyre but makes frequent journeys to Lilongwe further north, where he is captured by Marais (to whom he tries to sell a policy) and then released.

I couldn't believe in the metamorphosis of Mullet from clumsy Babbittry to a character whose perceptions about Africa, though they do his maker credit, rest uneasily on his fragile shoulders.