Book Review: Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads, by Paul Theroux, with photos by Steve McCurry (2015)

The cover of Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads, by Paul Theroux, 2015. The photo shows an old movie theater in Warren, Arkansas, by Steve McCurry.

Author Paul Theroux, photo by Steve McCurry. Theroux has written about 50 books.

Abandoned gas station on Route 301, Allendale, South Carolina. Photo by Steve McCurry.

Paul Theroux’s 2015 travel book Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads, marks the first time that Theroux has written a travel book about the United States. Theroux has some specific criteria for his book: he stays away from the big cities of the South and only examines the tiny towns. He finds poverty that reminds him of Africa, but also friendly people who welcome him in and quickly pour out the stories of their lives to him.

Deep South has an interesting structure, as traveling in his own country and journeying on his own timetable allows Theroux to revisit some of the same people and places in different seasons. While this sometimes leads to a deeper and richer sense of place, it also makes for some inevitable repetition. 

At the start of the book, Theroux writes, “I was to discover that America is accessible, but Americans in general are not; they are harder to know than any people I’ve traveled among.” (p.10) Theroux explains further, writing that in contrast to other cultures, in America “One is more often greeted with suspicion, hostility, or indifference. In this way Americans could be more challenging, more difficult to get acquainted with, more secretive and suspicious and in many respects more foreign, than any people I have ever met.” (p.23) I found this to be an interesting observation from a traveler as seasoned as Theroux. I wonder if American’s attitudes toward a traveler would change if the traveler is from another country? Is Theroux sometimes greeted with suspicion because he is an American asking questions about America? An advantage to being a traveler is that you are an outsider, and therefore get to ask questions that no one else would.

Deep South fascinated me because the South is an area of America that I haven’t explored much. When I was 15, my Dad and I took a road trip from Minneapolis down the Mississippi to Memphis. Just like the Paul Simon song, we went to see Graceland. We drove into Mississippi to see Elvis Presley’s birthplace in Tupelo, but that’s as far south as we went. I still haven’t been to Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, or South Carolina. I’ve been to Florida, but Florida is really in its own special category. 

As someone who has spent most of my life in Minnesota, I haven’t encountered that many Southerners. (Why would anyone move from the South to a place known for cold and snowy winters?) When I spent a semester in Washington, DC during college, I had a friend in my dorm from Tennessee. As smart as he was, I remember him once insisting to me that Abraham Lincoln had owned slaves. (No, he didn’t.) One of my college history classes was “The Civil War,” and we had one guy in the class who was from the South. He ended up dropping the class, shortly after attempting to argue that Robert E. Lee was more liberal on slavery than Abraham Lincoln. I still don’t know many people from the South, but I'm good friends with a co-worker who grew up in Alabama. She’s reading Deep South now as well, and it’s been interesting to compare our notes on it. 

The urban-rural divide in America really fascinates me, so I was eager to learn more about the rural areas of the South that Theroux focused on. Theroux sometimes repeats himself, which is perhaps understandable over the course of a 440 page book. He constantly reminds the reader that various Southern towns remind him of ones he’s seen in Africa. This is perhaps justified as something that all travelers do-we compare things we are seeing for the first time to things we have seen before. Theroux also wonders many times why more isn’t being invested in the South-either by the state and federal governments or by private foundations, like Bill Clinton’s Clinton Foundation.

Throughout the book we see towns like Greensboro, Alabama and Allendale, South Carolina that have been devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs.  An officer in a bank in Greenville says to Theroux, “Things are worse than they look.” (p.118) I couldn’t help but wonder if Theroux had traveled through rural towns in the North, what would he have found? Would he have encountered the same mixture of poverty and decaying small towns where industry has moved on? 

Theroux encounters his share of stereotypical southern tropes, such as when he attends gun shows. Religion also surfaces as a theme, as Theroux attends several different churches where the congregation is largely African American. After quoting a long list of signs that we are in the Last Days from an evangelical radio show, Theroux sums up his feelings towards those prognosticators: “Last Days? Don’t they know? These traits are the traits of all days, every day, everywhere.” (p.305) 

Theroux’s writing is sharp and incisive, and people instinctively trust him, as they open up to him and reveal their thoughts and worries. One of the most interesting people Theroux runs across is Randall Curb, a book lover who has now gone blind, living on his own in Greensboro, Alabama. Randall could surely be a character in a book of Southern fiction, an intelligent man who is very sensitive and also suffers from depression. 

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Theroux said that one of the differences between the North and the South is how friendly people are: “I have a new policy of always saying hello in the post office now, and I get very strange reactions. You say hello to a stranger in the North and they think you're drunk. Or if it's a woman, she might think you're a stalker. They might think you're insane. Why? Because you said hello. But in the South, it's a normal interaction. And for me, it's a very great advantage if people are approachable.” 

Steve McCurry’s photos at the back of the book are all excellent, but they seem almost like something of an afterthought. His photo for the cover, of an old movie theater in Warren, Arkansas, with the evocative name of “Pastime,” is just perfect. Pastime, so close to “past time,” bringing to mind the image of a South in a state of perpetual elegant decay. 

Deep South is a fascinating look at a part of America that doesn’t get much media attention, and although the book has its flaws, it’s well worth your time.

Book Review: Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)

Book jacket of Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015.

The journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

There is a racial crisis in America right now, as it becomes clearer and clearer that we are not actually living in a “post-racial” America, as some people had hoped after Barack Obama was elected in 2008. Incidents of police brutality against young African American men have become all too commonplace in the headlines over the last few years. Saint Paul, the city where I live, was thrust into these headlines this past summer with the tragic death of Philando Castile. Against the backdrop of this crisis, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote 2015’s Between the World and Me, a long letter to his 15 year old son, and a meditation about race in America.

Whether you agree with what Coates writes in the book or not, Between the World and Me is an extremely important book, one that deserves to be widely read by both black and white readers. Coates tells his story of growing up in Baltimore, and how race has defined and shaped his life. 

I know that as a white person, or as Coates would write, “A person who believes they are white,” I cannot fully understand what it’s like to be black in America. My understanding of Coates’ book is inevitably colored by my race. 

Coates paints a bleak and depressing picture of race in America, telling his son, “So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair.” (p.71) Well, it sounds pretty despairing to me. 

There is a sad truth when Coates writes, “In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body-it is heritage.” (p.103) I agree with Coates’ depiction of race relations throughout American history, but what I don’t agree with is Coates’ seeming insistence that we are prisoners of the past, playing out the same rituals of oppression time and time again. I saying seeming insistence because I don’t actually know if Coates thinks we can move beyond racism or not. I suppose I just want to have faith in the idea that we are making progress towards greater equality in this country. If we don’t have faith in that idea, then how do you avoid nihilism and despair?

Coates name-checks Malcolm X many times in the book, and it’s clear that Malcolm is an intellectual hero of his, but since all of the Malcolm X quotes are from the time he was involved with the Nation of Islam, I wondered what Coates would say about the Malcolm X of 1964 and 1965 who believed in integration, rather than black separatism? 

Coates does not give the reader any answers in Between the World and Me, he doesn’t prescribe any solutions. He offers the reader no succor, only a list of ever-growing offenses. I’m okay with that-not every book needs to have the answers for the difficult and complicated questions it raises. And the questions that Between the World and Me raises are essential ones for America in 2016.

Book Review: The Relic Master, by Christopher Buckley (2015)

Cover of The Relic Master, by Christopher Buckley, 2015.

Christopher Buckley, 2015.

Christopher Buckley is most well-known for his satirical novels that poke fun at contemporary politics. His latest novel, The Relic Master, released in December of 2015, is set in the Holy Roman Empire of the 16^th century. So, yes, it’s a bit of a change of pace for Buckley. But The Relic Master is a very successful change of pace, and the erudite wit that readers expect from Buckley is still to be found in generous quantities. 

The relic master in question is named Dismas, and he works for two different patrons, Frederick the Wise of Saxony, and Albrecht, the Archbishop of Mainz. Dismas travels far and wide searching for holy relics, which can be anything associated with saints or early Christian martyrs. And I do mean anything. The novel opens in 1517, with Dismas attending a relic fair in Basel. One vendor offers, “…the tongue (entire) of St. Anthony of Padua; an ampulla of the Virgin’s breast milk; a stone from the scala santa, the steps of Pilate’s palace; a few pieces of straw from the sacra incunabulum, the holy manger in Bethlehem; and shavings from the chains of St. Peter. A suspiciously vast array of goods.” (p.7)

People paid money to venerate these relics, and in return, they received time off from their time spent in purgatory after death. One of the funnier scenes in The Relic Master is when Albrecht and Friar Tetzel figure out how many years in purgatory each of the relics is worth. This practice was known as selling indulgences, and it was one of the main reasons why Martin Luther split from the Catholic Church. (Luther is a cause of much consternation throughout The Relic Master.) 

After losing all of his savings, Dismas decides to take advantage of the Archbishop of Mainz’s ravenous desire to own the burial shroud of Christ, and he enlists his good friend, the artist Albrecht Durer, to help him create a fake shroud. To say more about the plot would give too much away, and you probably know by this point in the review if the book sounds interesting or not. 

Buckley creates many vivid characters in The Relic Master, some of them based in history, others not. Dismas’ love interest in the book is Magda, a beautiful woman who has a strong background in apothecary, which comes in handy many times. My favorite minor character in the book was Rostang, a chamberlain with a verbal tic who has many funny lines. And in Dismas, Buckley has created a compelling lead character to follow through the story. Dismas has two of my favorite lines from the book:

“Witches cannot bear the touch of the crucified Jesus. Thank God for science.” (p.151) 

“Let me explain Christianity to you. Pilgrims make pilgrimages to atone. Do you think people walk hundreds of miles to grovel before relics because they feel wonderful about themselves? No. They do it because they think otherwise they will go to Hell.” (p.221, Dismas to Durer)

Throughout The Relic Master Buckley does an excellent job of giving the reader the necessary historical context, but it never feels dry or dull. The Relic Master is another highly entertaining work from one of our funniest writers.

Book Review: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson (2015)

Book cover of Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson, 2015.

The grand ocean liner RMS Lusitania.

Author Erik Larson.

Erik Larson’s latest book, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania shows once again that he is a master of narrative non-fiction. Even though we know the tragic fate of the Lusitania before the book begins, it’s still a page-turner. Larson has worked a similar spell in several other books, including the huge best-sellers The Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts. (I reviewed In the Garden of Beasts last year here.) The passenger liner RMS Lusitania was one of the most advanced ships of the early 20^th century, allowing passengers to cross the Atlantic in sumptuous luxury and at very fast speeds. The Lusitania was launched in 1906, and it provided excellent service until it was torpedoed by German submarine U-20 off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915. The Lusitania sank in just 18 minutes, and nearly 1,200 people lost their lives. World opinion was outraged at Germany for targeting a civilian ship during wartime. 

Larson takes us inside the Lusitania on its final voyage across the Atlantic, as it headed from New York City to its appointment with destiny. Larson also uses the captain’s log from U-20 to reconstruct its mission to destroy as much Allied shipping as possible. We get a vivid sense of what life was like on these two very different ships. Larson combines the storytelling ability of a novelist with the historian’s ability to craft a readable tale from many different sources. 

Like many great disasters, luck and chance played significant roles in the fateful meeting between the Lusitania and U-20. The morning of May 7^th had been very foggy, and if the fog would have held for another hour, the Lusitania and U-20 would have passed each other totally unaware of the other’s presence. The Cunard Line, who owned the Lusitania, was trying to conserve coal, so the Lusitania was only using three of its four boiler rooms. This decreased the top speed the ship could reach, and added a day to the voyage. Had the Lusitania been traveling at top speed the entire voyage, she would have reached Liverpool before U-20 reached the southern coast of Ireland. The captain of U-20, Walther Schwieger, had already sunk several ships on his mission, and by the afternoon of May 7^th he had turned the submarine around and was heading home. But he happened to see the Lusitania through his periscope and the big ship suddenly turned to give him a perfect angle to fire at it. Schwieger had miscalculated the speed of the Lusitania, as he thought it was traveling at 22 knots, but it was really moving at 18 knots. But Schwieger’s miscalculation meant that the torpedo struck the Lusitania at the perfect spot to produce maximum damage. That the torpedo found its target at all was remarkable, as 60% of German torpedoes failed for one reason or another. The Lusitania quickly listed 15 degrees to starboard, making it impossible to launch any of the lifeboats on the port side. Just 6 of the Lusitania’s 22 lifeboats were launched successfully. Just 18 minutes after the torpedo struck the ship, the Lusitania had slid beneath the ocean’s surface. Even under the most ideal conditions, there was no way nearly 2,000 people could have evacuated the ship that quickly. The poor souls on the Titanic at least had 2 ½ hours. 

Dead Wake is a fascinating look at one of the most tragic disasters of the 20^th century, and if you’re a fan of Erik Larson’s terrific writing, you need to read it.