Pastoral scene of the gallant South

During the first ten pages of this long work Paul Theroux, on a journey through the American South, meets two citizens of Alabama. The first, encountered in Tuscaloosa when he asked the way to the Cornerstone Full Gospel Baptist Church, was named Lucille, called him ‘Mr Paul’, said ‘Ain’t no strangers here, Baby’, took him to the church and said ‘Be Blessed’ when they parted. The second, a citizen of Gadsden, was named Wendell, called him ‘Sir’, clamped him on the shoulder, said ‘Kin Ah he’p you in inny way?’ and before they parted suggested they meet again for ‘a sandwich, peanuts or anything’.

In neither encounter, in a part of the world where racial sensibilities are probably more intrusive than anywhere else, does Theroux happen to mention whethereither Lucille or Wendell was black or white — they were simply representative of what he calls the comforting embrace, or alternatively the unrelenting grip, of the Deep South — the part of the country, that is, that formed the slave states of the old Confederacy.

Theroux has sometimes been accused of misanthropic responses. He has been a generous friend of mine for many years, though, and I hope I will not be accused of bias when I say that none of his previous travel books has so well illustrated the depth of his humanity, at once worldly, detached and sympathetic, as does this diligent work about the American South — the first he has written about his own country.

It is not really a travel book at all, except in the most elementary way. It involves travel, of course, because as it happens the world-wandering Theroux has never been to the South before, so his several lengthy incursions into the lands of the Lucilles and the Wendells have necessarily entailed motorised meanders down there.