Customer Reviews

Call of the Weird

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As of today, April 1, 2007, this book is ranked over 100,000 at Amazon. Where are the readers? This is, so far, the best book I've read all year. Today is April 1, but I'm not joking.

I read this book in one day, on a trip from Boston to Fairbanks, Alaska. This gave me the opportunity to literally take the book in as a whole. According to Theroux in the prologue, he covers four main sources of journalistic weirdness: sexual, racial, religious, and narcissistic. He interviews the types of poeple that most would consider "weird." But for Theroux, the host of a popular British TV show, his motivation is different than the typical Jerry Springer variety. The interviewees and their entourage take a back stage to the way Theroux interacts with everyone and everything. Sometimes we detect empathy. Somethines we detect mild scorn. Always, Theroux humanizes his subjects while he exposes them. The methods are always subtle.

Theroux's writing style is clean, crisp, using the right adjective or adverb when necessary. His quotes really bring his interviewees to life: Theroux is not afraid to keep local dialects or cultural or socio-economic related slang. The prose is polished.

This is an excellent work of journalism, matching the quality of Gay Talese, Michael Lewis, or Malcolm Gladwell. It's too bad that this book isn't noticed more in the U.S. This book is as much a work of journalism as it is a work of psychology or sociology. There is work in them thar pages -- despite the crude subject matter, this is no fly-by-night piece of hack writing. Theroux asks the correct questions. He mixes a sophisticated sense or ironic humor with brief interludes of philosophic discourse, always reporting the facts without letting his personal opinions get in the way. (He does give his opinions, but they do not bias the text.) He commands a sophisticated vocabulary, maintaining a mature, elegant prose. His self-effacing writing style is fair to the reader.

The most important conclusion of this book is taken from Theroux's Epilogue: "'Have you ever argued with a member of the Flat Earth Society?' a self-help guru named Ross Jeffries once asked me. 'It's completely futile, because fundamentally they don't care if something is true or false. To them, the measure of truth is how important it makes them feel. If telling the truth makes them feel important, then it's true. If telling the truth makes them feel ashamed and small, then it's false.' My experience on my trip has borne this out. On the list of qualities necessary to humans trying to make out way through life, truth scores fairly low...in the end, feeling alive is more important than telling the truth....We are instruments for feeling, faith, energy, emotion, significance, belief, but not really truth."

This last pragraph, my fellow readers, sums up Theroux's great book.
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The Call of the Weird is the first book offering from Louis Theroux, son of American travel writer and novelist, Paul Theroux. Formerly a writer for the satirical magazine, Spy and host of such celebrated U.K. television programs as Weird Weekends and When Louis Met, Louis Theroux offers a weirdly appealing jaunt through a number of subcultures that most Americans would choose to overlook completely. He shows little fear (or far less than most of us would, I venture) in engaging the likes of prostitutes, porn stars, alien killers, gangsta rappers, cult members, white supremacist folk singers, and even Ike Turner.

Theroux sets off on his journey with a mind to revisit ten of his most memorable "ex interviewees" to see how their beliefs and subcultures might've shifted in light of changes in the world at large, or as he writes, "Clinton's American versus Bush's America; the nineties and the noughties." What he finds is nothing short of...well...weird.

In each chapter Theroux begins by setting the scene, recapping his first engagement with the subject at hand, and he always takes some time to analyze the changes (or lack thereof) in the people he's dealing with. Perhaps the most intriguing and engaging part of the book is Theroux's willingness to engage with some of the most intimidating or downright odd subcultures one might think of with a terrific amount of humility and humanity. While he might find himself stricken close to speechlessness by some of the tirades or actions his subjects engage in, he also does a fine job keeping judgments to a minimum and effectively communicating not only the "weird," but the seemingly normal in all of us: the fervent anti-Semite's flying toaster screensaver, the porn star's happy marriage, Ike Turner's nostalgia.

In one particularly telling instance Theroux writes:

"Jerry's casual anti-Semitism was routine. Most of the time I ignored it, but I was aware of the unseemliness of having a virulent neo-Nazi as the contact person for my lost computer. I wondered if I could trust him--didn't the monstrousness of his beliefs suggest a fundamental dishonesty? But I was fairly sure I could rely on Jerry, and found it all the more odd that, for all his hatefulness, Jerry could also be thoughtful and decent."

Theroux's honest struggle with his personal beliefs in relation to the paradox of hatred and kindness so often present in his interviewees is what makes this book so very difficult to put down. I admired his candor and his bravery very much, and his willingness to present an even-handed account of his subjects in what are often such wildly disagreeable circumstances to the average person, no matter what part of the world he or she hales from.

As he poignantly summarizes:

"Though occasionally I'd been rebuffed by my old subjects, or shocked by their beliefs, and though I'd sometimes questioned my own motivations, in general I was more amazed by their willingness to put up with me a second time, and surprised by my affection for them. I'd been moved at times, and irritated, and upset, but the emotions had been real."

I suppose it is this impenetrable sense of reality that is at once unsettling and overwhelmingly attractive about The Call of the Weird, for it is certainly a very fine peek into the taboo and tantalizing in an often wholly unrepresented America.

Louis Theroux is an Oxford graduate and former writer for the satirical magazine "Spy" and for Michael Moore's award-winning "TV Nation," as well as a former host of the BBC series "Weird Weekends" and son of American travel writer and novelist, Paul Theroux. The Call of the Weird is his first book, and it is a superlative work of journalistic effort.

Ten years after hosting a BBC series on weird American subcultures, Theroux decided to follow up on and write a book about his interviewees.

These are people most of us would want to avoid: Thor Templar, Lord Commander of the Earth Protectorate, who claims to have killed ten aliens (of the extraterrestrial rather than undocumented Latin American variety); April Gaede, a neo-Nazi mother bringing up twin daughters Lamb and Lynx, who form the "White Power" folk group Prussian Blue; Marshall Sylver, get-rich-quick guru, life coach and indicted fraudster; Oscody, nostalgic survivor of the suicidal Heaven's Gate cult and Jerry Gruidl, self-nominated fuhrer of the violently racist Aryan Nations organization - dreamers, schemers and outlaws all.

Theroux attempts to discover what motivates people to believe outrageous things, what it means to be weird and to be oneself, and whether Americans have a peculiar propensity to believe in the unbelievable.

Theroux's subjects include UFO enthusiasts, porn stars, white supremacists, brothel prostitutes, gangsta rappers, and, strangely, Ike Turner. Theroux gravitates to them because he believes - and attempts to document - their use of weirdness to feel "alive," and that's "more important than telling the truth."

Theroux is pointedly (and poignantly) asked by one contact, "Have you ever argued with a member of the Flat Earth Society? ... it's completely futile, because fundamentally they don't care if something is true or false. To them, the measure of truth is how important it makes them feel. If telling the truth makes them feel important, then it's true. If telling the truth makes them feel ashamed and small, then it's false."

Theroux's writing is clean, clear and tight and his interviewing style is wonderfuly textured and illustrative, bringing his subjects to life, keeping local dialects and cultural or socio-economic related slang in place to vivid effect.

"Call of the Weird" is a wonderful psycho-social travel essay, a "Passport to Adventure" that allows us a peek at what's happening at the margins of civil society out between and beyond the boundaries of the inappropriate, the bizarre, the macabre and the truly grotesque.

"The Call of the Weird" is so far documentary maker Louis Theroux's one and only book. He wrote it after finishing his series "Weird Weekends" for BBC2, which was a documentary series on subcultures (whether political, commercial, sports or whatever else). The format of the series was that Theroux would visit the centers of the subculture, participate in it to immerse himself, and as much as possible let the practitioners speak for themselves without moralizing about them, but nonetheless in so doing revealing the odd and quirky aspects of the human personality and drive. The series has generally been extremely well-received, and deservedly so, not in the last place because of Theroux's own shy, nerdy and somewhat self-effacing personality and the friendly integrity of his approach in talking to people who are in one way or the other outside the mainstream. The occasion for this book was Theroux's worry that he nonetheless may have made a manipulative or abusive impression to the people he interviewed, even when he legitimately befriended them (like the porn star J.J. Michaels). To assuage his fears and to see what became of the people from the series, he revisits many of the most colorful characters again but without a camera, instead writing down his experiences in this book.

Unfortunately, the book isn't nearly as interesting as the series. While the quirky figures are still there, Theroux has very little to add to what he already presented about them in the television programs. Moreover, none of the people involved really seem to have worried as much about the impact of his program as Theroux himself did, and few of them in fact even seem to care (or when they do, they perceived it generally negatively but not because of him). Louis Theroux himself seems constantly ill at ease in his second trip, and the format of a book puts him more in the center of things and his interviewees more in the background, which defeats the original purpose. Finally, while there are some interesting and insightful bits, such as his interviews in the white power movement, in most cases the lives of the people concerned are more sad and unfulfilling than amusing. So while it is fun to read some more about some of the favorite personalities from the original series and to read more about the antics they get up to, generally this book can't be considered a success.

Anybody considering this book should definitely see at least a few of Louis Theroux's BBC documentaries before reading the book, which tells what the author discovered upon revisiting some of his former subjects years after filming them. (Some of the earlier Amazon reviews of the book spell out who the subjects are, so I won't repeat that info here.) Theroux spends a fair bit of time recounting his initial encounters with these folks--essentially, summarizing the relevant portion of the film in which they were featured--then provides an account of what he found when he went looking for them again minus the camera crew, in what seems to be 2004 or 2005. The prose is very readable and often funny, but while the writing style is breezy, the book does contain an undercurrent of sadness and more than a little ugliness (as one might expect when visiting fanatical racists). Much as I enjoyed the book, I found it slightly disappointing: I had hoped that Theroux would use the book to expand upon his subjects and his own ideas in ways that are more detailed and intellectually developed than the format of a TV show allows. He takes a few steps in those directions, but overall the book is quite a lot like the narration and dialogue from his films, minus the visual information. As such, I think the book is ultimately less rewarding than his films--more of a supplement to them than a fully developed work on its own terms--but the book is still a real pleasure, and I recommend it to all who are intrigued by his films.

Vonnegut type craziness plus television's version of reality gives this book a chance to define what is really weird from UFO cults to gurus to drug-crazed musicians

Fans of Louis Theroux's award winning television series `Weird Weekends' should certainly seek out this read. Louis returns to some of the more interesting characters from the programme to see if/how their lives have changed since the filming of the series.
His subsequent experiences make for compelling reading. However, anyone expecting a humourous read in the style of the TV shows should be warned, I found reading about these people and the way their lives had changed, a far more solemn experience than I had expected. Many of the people featured have fallen upon hard times, and the book presents a stark contrast from the television programmes where, by and large, events are far more positive. I was left feeling quite sad, lamenting the manner in which many of the featured individuals' lives have turned sour.
Nevertheless, the aforementioned discussion of the direction and details of the book are in no way an indictment of its contents . Far from it; I couldn't put it down! It's more that the enjoyment derived is of a different variety from that found in the television companion to the tome.

Americans who haven't seen the excellent deadpan documentaries by Louis Theroux can still appreciate his dry yet sympathetic humor through this book. He tracks down his ex-interviewees for another round, from porn stars to gangsta rappers to prostitutes, UFO enthusiasts and neo-Nazis, including a mother who has encouraged her twin daughters to form a white power band called Prussian Blue. When she asks them if they're hungry, she suggests tossing a Jew in the oven. Louis Theroux is able to communicate with all kinds of people on the fringes of society while resisting the temptation to punch their lights out, but also speaking his mind when their views become intolerable. My only question is whether the book should be called "The Call of the Weird" or "The Call of the Pathetic". Surely there must be some weird people out there that Louis could interview, who actually have some positive achievements!

Louis Theroux's book defies Oscar Wilde's dictum that journalism is unreadable (and literature is never read), because it's exceedingly readable. Not only that, it offers nuanced, highly sympathetic portrayals of some characters you wouldn't normally expect to receive such treatment. It's not at all that Theroux agrees with people such as Jerry Gruidl, an adherent of the peculiarly American take on Nazism known as the Christian Identity movement, but by giving Gruidl a fair treatment and depicting him as a human being in all his complexity, Theroux gives us an opportunity to form our own conclusions--and that's an infinitely more interesting way to approach a subject like this.

I first encountered Theroux in a documentary he did about the Westboro Baptist bunch--the ones who picket military funerals--and there, too, was impressed with the fact that he didn't talk down to us by telling us just how sick and offensive they are. We don't need that, assuming we're halfway intelligent; rather, let the subjects damn themselves--and that's exactly what Theroux did.

Same here, only because it's a book, you get a lot more detail and insight than any film could offer. One of my favorite scenes was in the Gruidl chapter, when a deranged woman shouted down a group of Aryan Nations thugs with her own weirdly racist slogans, "demonstrating, perhaps, that the most effective antidote to the racist marchers wasn't rational argument but to be even crazier and more obscurely bigoted."

Great book, full of intelligent and often hilarious observations. I just got it as an early Christmas gift and am zooming through it, my enthusiasm held in check only by the fact that I don't want it to end.

An entertaining and easy read. Gives a bit more of an insight into Louis Theroux's personality, something which always seemed a bit difficult to judge in the TV show.

Quite interesting to hear what had happened to some of the interviewees as well.