Theroux’s O-Zone New Year’s Eve ranks among the most disagreeable and uncomfortable picnics.

Eight picnickers have gathered in the O-Zone or Outer Zone, once Arkansas and Missouri, now in 2036, a vast ecological disaster area. Encased in self-contained radiationproof spacesuits, they are sucking Noodle Gluten, Hollandaise Whitefish, Shrimp Paste, Oyster Pellets, Textured Lobster, Crab Strings, Meat Butter, Spinach Sauce, and Non-alcoholic Wine.

So when Willis Murdick, * says,” This is a memorable meal. We’ve got our vitamins, we’ve got our bulk, our fiber, and our taste.” No one is enthused.

When Moura Albright says, “I like it. I just wish I didn’t have to squirt it into my mask to eat it.” Murdick corrects her, “You don’t squirt it, you squeeze it—pressure means everything with space food. And use your suckhole—didn’t I give you one?” When Holly chimes in, “We ought to eat like this back in New York—we’d be a whole lot happier, and we’d live longer.” Hooper replies, “I think I could be happy without forcing this parrot shit down my gullet.” (This might be said about most of this 600-page novel.)

*Murdick’s name is a sarcastic pun.

Featured Image: Food NASA’s spacecraft Atlantis.

See Paul Theroux. O-Zone. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1986