"That seemed to be the theme in the Deep South: kindness, generosity, a welcome. I had found it often in my traveling life in the wider world, but I found so much more of it here, that I kept going, because the good will was like an embrace. Yes, there is a haunted substratum of darkness in Southern life, and though it pulses through many interactions, it takes a long while to perceive it and even longer to understand." p. 10

I have lived in Virginia for more than thirty years. I have learned to live with my adopted states idiosyncrasies and I feel welcome here. Virginia has made a lot of changes and so have I. However, I would never claim to understand this region of the country. The South is still a mystery to me.

So when I was offered the opportunity by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to read Theroux's latest travelogue, I jumped at the chance. It has been decades since I read anything by Theroux, but I remembered his writing as interesting and his topics as fascinating. I am intrigued by the South. Over the last year I have read a few books with Southern roots. They only whet my appetite for more. This is a confusing place.

The deep South is especially hard for me to grasp for a few reasons. I have not spent any time there. The racial politics are, in my opinion, a mess. Lastly, the poverty is overwhelming. Theroux did not change any of these things for me. However, I have now heard about some good things that people are trying to do in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. I have seen the deep South through the eyes of someone who pays attention, asks questions and really listens to the answers. It was well worth taking the journey with Theroux.

Once again, I get to encounter the world through a good book. I would have never taken the time to visit as Theroux did. I wouldn't have been comfortable, I wouldn't have talked to people and I don't think I could have tolerated the poverty. However, I now know a bit more about my country and as hard as it is to deal with the racial, political and other problems of these area, I need to be aware.

In a review somewhere on Good Reads, (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1153544609?book_show_action=true&page=1) someone wrote that the opposite of poverty is not wealth, but justice. I think that phrase speaks to what Theroux found also. I believe that without these books that show us this dichotomy, we will never see the need to make changes.

I think that all readers should become more aware of the place they live. If you don't read this book, which I highly recommend, then read something about a part of your world that you know little about. This kind of writing and reading is good for the soul, the heart and the brain.


As always, thank you to Edelweiss for allowing me to read this e-book.

In the end, it was pretty good. Despite my gripes with the author's voice I ended up liking the book a lot. Thankfully, he keeps his annoying personal asides to a minimum and focuses on the people he meets.

Since this is my very first travel book, I cannot say whether it's unusual, but I would assume so, as it focuses on people, not so much places. The few descriptions, including those of the author's back yard, are very poetic, though. And this means something coming from me, since I usually hate descriptions.

The theoretical chapters dealing with some key aspects of the South were also very interesting.

Smug sense of superiority aside, I've got to hand it to the man: he writes very well and he is well-read and perceptive and seemingly has a way of getting people to open up to him because they tell him the darnedest things.

Having made my own (far too short!!) first trip to the South very recently, I subscribe to the author's statement that people are welcoming and kind. They are. And being greeted when passing by felt surprisingly nice. But the South is not a happy place, even though I was very happy visiting it. It's tensions and conflicts are brought to light very clearly in the book and in a complex way. All in all a great book to read, in-depth, honest and thoughtful.

Full of insight but marred by eyesight.

"One of the grandest creations of the New South was a mythical concept of an Old South."

Deep South is Paul Theroux's travels in the deep south region of USA. Deep South is about those confederate states we keep hearing about due to their civil war past, their undiminished love for slavery, their unspoken poverty, their lack of infrastructure, their love for christian evangelism, their passion for gun ownership and surprisingly their welcoming the visitors attitude.

Theroux has been criticised in quite a few reviews here on Goodreads about how he is projecting stereotypes of the southern folks which although is somewhat true but isn't what his travel writing about? No one was complaining when he did the same in Africa & Asia. To give him credit he is not a racist but is mostly politically incorrect. He writes frankly what we are thinking in our minds but are afraid to speak out loud fearing being labelled. He is very critical of the US Government here comparing most of the southern towns with what he has seen in African countries. Another aspect he keeps bringing up are the multi-billion dollar charities working in remote parts of the world while neglecting their own backyards especially Clinton's foundation as he is a son of the soil.

This one is probably for Paul Theroux's fans only and even then it is not his best work.

What a fine book. I'd not read Theroux before...quite a way to discover an exceptional author. He traveled the back roads of the Deep South, talking to anyone who would talk to him, eating where the locals congregated, attending gun shows and rousing church services, finding history in overlooked places and, of course, explored the age-old issue of racial tension. I grew up in the South and never encountered half of what he discovers...the extreme poverty, motels all owned by Indians named Patel (he played this point quite hilariously), black farmers who face loan discrimination, the fingerprint of the KKK, transplants trying to make a difference in small communities but finding it unbelievably hard to create any lasting change. He does a superb job of highlighting the warmth and friendliness of the South, with words and phrases spelled phonetically that made me homesick, but also calls out the hostile suspicion towards outsiders that can feel rather isolating.

Theroux focuses on a few states: South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. I was quite disappointed that I didn't get to hear his view on my home state and all its little communities, but I think Louisiana--and Texas, and Florida--have enough of their own character and flavor that they would have each added another 400 pages to an already long book.

His discoveries prompted a lot of thought about my experience in the South, and made me want to go on my own road trip, meandering the overgrown, black asphalt roads, trying out the soul food along the way, maybe stopping for a church service or two with a rousing gospel choir. I was reminded that I need to take the time to read Faulkner, and will be looking for Mary Ward Brown's books (highly recommended from someone who is very well-read). It wasn't just the subject matter that made this an exceptional read: Theroux has such a way with words. The parallel he draws between Old Man River and himself in the concluding paragraphs of the last chapter was so powerful that I was moved to tears. I hope you enjoy, Sarah and Loren! Let me know what think...I'd love to have a discussion on your observations.

If I were a southerner I might possibly be insulted by this book, the author can come across as very condescending, though, he might comes across as pretty condescending to anyone who doesn't read quality books or travel the world. I'm not sure if he means to but he does.
That said, the man has a way with words, he can describe the setting and the people in a way that almost, almost makes you feel like you're there and I do feel like I know more about The South than before.
It was great that he spent the time to visit the outlying areas, that he didn't spend his time in New Orleans or Charleston but went to the little towns that are trying to survive and talked to the people trying to help and the people trying to survive and the people who are working hard and making things better.
I'm going to have to visit the area myself to see if his vision runs true, or if he had preconceived notions that he found a way to substantiate but I guess that's what travel writing is all about, to inspire someone to go where they haven't gone before, and he's done that for me.

Theroux is overlong, repetitive, self-important, and self-righteous in this book. The self-focus has been kind of charming in previous travel books (it was the bright feature of Black Star Safari), along with his ongoing grumpiness. But those days are over. Very disappointing.

Bleak. That's how Paul Theroux characterizes the South as he travels around the southeastern United States, comparing the region to the crushing poverty and lack of infrastructure he witnessed in Zimbabwe. I found Theroux's writing style and observations equal parts pretension and condescending, inserting a rant about "contrived ordeals" in various travelogues from other writers. He should have saved such literary criticism for "The New Yorker" instead of inserting it into this work.

I abandoned reading this because of the slow, plodding pace.

Haven't come across a lot of books that focus on the "Deep South". Overall this book was pretty good. I had one major problem though - the author made it seem like the Deep South can be boiled down to four things: church, racism, poverty, and guns. These themes were emphasized in basically every interaction he had but still seeemed superficial and repetative. For example everywhere he went he would ask a white person where the black people are or vice versa. Near the end of the book he actually seeemed to dig into the issues a little more. For example his discussion with Arkansas farmers about how they are discriminated in the banking system was very informative and eye-opening.

The times he did stray from these four topics were refreshing and I would have like to see a little more of it. Overall though the people he came across and his descriptions of the interactions were really interesting.