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A good reminder to Americans that there is plenty of normalized rural poverty close to home; you don’t have to search for it across the globe.

Very interesting book about Theroux's travels in the deep south. He doesn't just once and return to write about it, as he does in his other travel books, but makes a trip in each of the seasons to revisit people and places. Here we read, quite viscerally, the damage done to the people there after all the manufacturing left.

Paul Theroux could write the phone book into great literature. Here, he stays state-side and takes us into the Deep South during 4 separate trips during one year. Theroux is unsparing in his depiction of the racism and poverty of the South, as well as the resilience of many of the folks he meets. The characters and settings jump off the page. Worth reading just for the fine writing.

I am extremely grateful for this book. It provided a look into a world in my own country that I knew so little about!

I give it three stars only because of the multiple occurrences where it feels as though there is too much exposition on a topic not fully relevant to the book.

An EXTREMELY worthwhile read.

Although I thought at times that Theroux came across as a little arrogant, I enjoyed the overall experience of the book, especially given that I am currently living in the south. Definitely increases understanding of a culture that is otherwise very foreign.

I disliked this book so much I could not finish reading it. I listened to the audiobook narrated by John McDonough, who narrated Mitford books by Jan Karon. I recently finished the last two Mitford books narrated by Mr. McDonough. I'd found those narrations unpleasant due to the combinations of stereotypical backwoods Southern accents and colloquial grammar used for many of the characters. As I listened to Deep South I kept bracing myself for more of the same. I did not get far enough to be driven away by the narration, however. It was the writing, specifically the long asides that had little to do with his travel in the South that were tiresome. His delving into mock ordeal travel was mildly interesting. Then the diatribe about travel by air and what an imposition it is go through security. I gave up. I've read several books by Paul Theroux and enjoyed them; this one was disappointing.

Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing me with an advanced copy of Paul Theroux's Deep South, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Having spent his career traveling to far-flung corners of the world, travel writer, Paul Theroux, decides to focus his latest book on the American south. Deep South covers Theroux's years-spanning/multiple-trips to many cities in the south, where he meet residents and immerses himself in southern culture.

LIKE - Paul Theroux does not leave stones unturned, nor does he shy from controversial subjects. As a Californian, reading Deep South from the comfort of my living room, I often felt very uneasy for the situations that Theroux puts himself in, however, had he not, this book wouldn't have packed the same punch. Theroux goes to churches, gun shows, farms, impoverished towns; often crossing the perceptible racial divide, and always aware of his outsider status being a northerner.

Deep South was an eye-opener. Theroux's research is current, having taken place in the last few years, and he discovered that integration is still a major problem; including towns with school districts that have unofficially kept segregation alive, by sending their children to separate schools to keep with "tradition". As a Los Angeles native, this is crazy to me.

I was shocked by the level of poverty. Theroux, having experience in third-world countries, thought that many areas of the south, were worse off than what he had experienced in Africa. I like how he highlighted individuals who are working hard to make a difference in their communities, giving their plight a sense of hope. If he hadn't included these people, the problems would have felt insurmountable. There are many communities in dire need.

On a more fun-fact note, I learned that there are many Indian motel owners in the South, and that seventy percent of all Indian motel owners have the last name Patel. Even crazier, one-third of all independent motel owners in the United States, are named Patel. How's that for a factoid?

I enjoyed Theroux literary references. Deep South is sprinkled with mention of southern writers, and he includes a whole chapter on Faulkner. These are a reminder of the strong literary tradition in the south. Theroux also strings southern cuisine and music as themes through his book, themes that bind the people of the region.

DISLIKE- Deep South is long. It's repetitive in content. It seems like Theroux attends a billion gun shows, all with the same result. I think he could have been more selective with what was included, yet still have maintained the importance and impact of Deep South. Also, occasionally his tone towards a subject is off-putting and unnecessary.

RECOMMEND- Yes!!! Deep South was both affecting and rattling. It definitely shook me with regard to poverty and equality in my own country. This isn't to say that Theroux only focuses on the negative aspects of the South, he also writes about the beauty of both the people and the landscape.

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Depressing but vivid

What makes Theroux's take on the Deep South so fascinating, is the erudition that he brings to his travels.

Thoreaux is arguably America's most traveled travel-writer with years of experience writing, traveling and living in Africa and Asia. When he makes comparisons in the book, he is far more likely to tie observations to Mozambique or Tanzania than to his native New England.

And Theroux's observations are canny. Sticking to the backroads of the South, he fixes his base to Organgeburg, SC; Greensboro, AL (a short ride from Tuscaloosa); and Vicksburg, MS. Revisiting these areas over the couse of three seasons in a calendar year--during the fourth season, summer, he hops across the Mississippi to Arkansas, where he circumnavigates the state, talking to people and focusing on black farmers.

Theroux's focus is poverty--a focus probably too relentless for any "proper" southerner to consider. His key contacts are non-profit managers who describe conditions in their run-down towns and put him in touch with people whom he can profile. Theroux does his due duty in the pews of churches and in the aisles of gun shows in many of the towns he visits. He does peripheral takes on a University of Alabama football game and the Aiken (SCS) Steeplechase, but he doesn't profile these very thoroughly.

Here's his take on the Alabama Crimson Tide:

Reflecting on the Crimson Tide, I ceased to think of it as football at all, except in a superficial way; it seemed much more like another Southern reaction to a feeling of defeat, with some of the half-buried emotion I'd noticed at gun shows. In a state that is so hard-pressed, with one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, with its history of racial conflict, and with so litte to boast about yet wishing tomatter, it is natural that a winning team--a national champion--would attract people in need of meaning or a self-esteem in their lives, and would become the basis of a classic in-group.

While Thoreaux's thoughts are insightful--he publishes intermediate chapters on Souther Literature that are enlightening--I think he misses the key rationale for the entrenched Southern cultural system. He wonders why the U.S. government can invest tens of millions in Africa but very little in Mississippi, why the Clinton Global Initative invests billions around the world but very little in the president's home state of Arkansas.

The fact is that Southern elites have the very genteel backwards South that they have always wanted. Outside money--whether it came from the federal government or the Clintons--is unwelcome because it puts the social structure at risk. America's current class of wealthy blacks have made their money in the North or on the West Coast (or increasingly in booming southern cities like Atlanta, Charlotte and Nashville). Theroux finds that even the transfer of political power in Greensboro, Alabama, where 2/3rd of the residents are black, is disconcerting to the genteel whites he finds there.

All in all, a fascinating book. I highly recommend it.