Presenter Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world talk to acclaimed American author Paul Theroux about his bestselling travel book Deep South. After fifty years crossing the globe, seeking adventure and stories to tell about places far from home, Theroux travels deep into the heart of his native country and discovers a land as profoundly foreign as anything he has previously experienced abroad. He finds in the deep south a place of contradiction, full of unforgettable characters, landscapes, music, and sense of community, but also some of the nation’s worst schools, housing, and unemployment rates. On four road trips across four seasons, wending along rural highways, Theroux visits small-town churches and gun shows, meets mayors and social workers, writers and reverends. The spectre of racism and the history slavery is never far away, but more often than not Theroux is met with the warmest of welcomes and a willingness to engage in deep and wide-ranging conversations. (Picture: Paul Theroux. Photo credit: Steve McCurry.)
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I'm Harriet Gilbert and this month we've been reading a non fiction book called Deep south, which takes us on a journey through some of the poorest, most haunted parts of the southern usa.
And here to answer questions about it from BBC listeners around the world is its authority, one of the most distinguished and enjoyable travel writers, the American, Paul Theroux.
Paul, a big welcome to World Book Club.
Well, aloha from Hawaii and I'm delighted to be here.
Yes, you are in Hawaii.
What are you doing there?
Do you live in Hawaii now?
Yes, I live here half the year and the rest of the year I live on the east coast of the States in Massachusetts.
That Paul Thoreau now lives in two such different places isn't surprising.
His life has always been restless.
Africa, Asia, Europe, Central and South America.
He's lived in and or travelled through them all and written well over 50 books inspired by them.
Many have been novels such as the Mosquito coast, but almost as many have been travel books.
The Great Railway Bazaar, for instance, the old Patagonian Express, and the one we're talking about today, Deep South.