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.