by Paul Theroux
First published 2015
Paul Theroux abandons his usual international destinations for a journey through America's Deep South. After five decades of global travel writing, he turns his attention to a region he had never properly explored. Theroux drives rural highways across four seasons, stopping at gun shows and small churches, talking with laborers in Arkansas and visiting Mississippi communities where locals still refer to nearby farms as plantations. He interviews mayors and social workers, writers and clergy, farming families and the working poor. The South he discovers contains contradictions: exceptional music and cuisine exist alongside some of America's poorest schools and highest unemployment rates. Theroux seeks out the overlooked places and unsung people who stayed in the region despite its challenges, as well as those who left and returned to help rebuild their communities. This marks his tenth travel book and his first sustained examination of his own country.
Genres: travel, non-fiction, biography-memoir, cultural-studies, american-history
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water
Setting: Deep South, America
Period: Four Seasons
441 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt