Review: The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Originally Published: September 2002

Plot Overview

The World: In a time when illegal drug production is the most structurally sound economic system, the country of Opium is prosperous. Opium is a strip of land that covers the border between the United States of America and what was once Mexico, now called Aztlán. The king of this drug empire: El Patrón, an ancient man who craves for the way of life he knew as a child, over 100 years ago. Opium is thriving because of its product: poppy plants. The expansive fields of poppy are farmed by eejits, almost literally mindless workers that must be commanded to remember their most basic of functions such as rest, drink water, work.

The Boy: Our main character is Matt, or Matteo Alacrán, a pre-adolescent clone of El Patrón. Matt has been kept a secret from El Patrón's descendants who currently reside on the poppy farm. Matt does not know what it means to be a clone or why everyone thinks he is no better than an animal, a beast, a mistake. Matt is extremely intelligent and precocious. He seeks out answers, he is willful and outspoken; he is much more like the powerful El Patrón than any of the family would like to admit.

The Problem: El Patrón is creeping on 150 years old. Through medical procedures that Matt cannot begin to fathom, El Patrón has plateaued into a state of mental decay, while his physical health appears to wax and wane. El Patrón may favor and care for Matt's studies and well-being, but the weaker the old man becomes, the closer Matt realizes he is to danger of being dismissed, killed, or worse by the Alacrán estate. They loathe him for being a 'filthy' clone whose very existence is unnatural, so if his benefactor, the very man whose DNA he shares, passes away... what will become of the filthy beast?

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My Review

Wow. Just... wow. Do you ever have a book on your shelf that you bought years ago, but you really can't remember what it is supposed to be about or why you originally wanted to read it? The House of the Scorpion is that book for me on so many levels. I asked for this book several years ago as a Christmas present, but something about the semi-lackluster cover just threw me off. I knew very little about the plot and even less about the author, but as part of my 2016 bookish goals to read more from my old TBR lists, I picked up this book about a week ago and never looked back.

I had no idea to expect a science fiction novel from what the excerpt led me to believe was a relatively realistic book. Without spoiling too much of the midway-point plot, cloning is almost one of the least scientifically advanced projects that is present in this novel. Nancy Farmer has created a very scary world within a more old-school Mexico story. Because El Patrón is so stuck in his old childhood, it is not surprising that he limits the residence of his family to such a technology deprived way of life. Some of the undertones of the overall plot included: clone rights, classism, socialism, and even basic human rights.

The reason I loved this book? It was not at all what I expected. I'm a huge fan of dystopian novels and general science fiction, but mixed in with family drama and a morally suspicious drug farm: incalculably entertaining. At times, I felt like I was watching a telenovela (or for those of you out there not into your daytime television, a Spanish soap opera) with no short of disapproving father figures and outbursts of rage or excitement. Don't let that description fool you, for although this is a book about Matt's family 'drama,' it is also an infuriating mash up of the ways in which a 'subhuman' clone can be disrespected and shoved around. It really made me think about what it means to be a person, or more specifically an individual. Matt is quite literally not an individual, and struggles with the fact that he is a clone of a feared drug lord daily. He is afraid for his life, for the lives of the few individuals in the estate that actually care for him as a human being, and Nancy Farmer has created an easy to bond with character in this book. This is by far the most connected I've felt with a main character in a while, not to mention it was a boy almost half my age!

This was an exciting book I will be holding onto for a long time to come. I'm not 100% sure if I will read the sequel (that came out over a decade after the original), but you guys will be the first to know if I do!

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars