T. C. Boyle · 1981 · overland

T. C. Boyle's exuberant 1981 debut braids two lives across the turn of the nineteenth century. Mungo Park, the real Scottish explorer, twice sets out to trace the course of the Niger, from the Gambia coast overland to the great river at Segou and, on his second and fatal voyage, down its length toward Timbuktu and the rapids at Bussa. Braided with him is Ned Rise, a London guttersnipe, thief and resurrection-man, whose picaresque misfortunes carry him at last onto Park's doomed expedition. Bawdy, anachronistic and headlong, it turns the dry bones of exploration history into a riotous comic epic.

1. 1
   Scotland

   Mungo Park, a young Scottish surgeon hungry for fame, leaves the Border country to offer himself to the African Association as an explorer of the Niger.

2. 2
   London

   In a London of gin, gallows and Grub Street schemes, Park's path crosses that of the irrepressible rogue Ned Rise, who will one day follow him to Africa.

3. 3
   The Gambia

   The expedition lands on the Gambia and strikes inland, into a continent no European map can yet honestly describe.

4. 4
   Segou

   After fever, robbery and captivity, Park reaches the Niger at Segou and sees at last the great river running eastward, the prize he was sent to find.

5. 5
   Timbuktu

   On the second, doomed expedition he launches downriver by boat, past the fabled reaches toward Timbuktu, the party dwindling with every mile.

6. 6
   The Bussa Rapids

   At the Bussa rapids the boat is ambushed from the banks, and Mungo Park drowns in the river he had crossed a continent to follow.