The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures [Hardcover]

Louis Theroux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2007

No, it doesn't get much weirder than this: Thor Templar, Lord Commander of the Earth Protectorate, who claims to have killed ten aliens. Or April, the Neo-Nazi bringing up her twin daughters Lamb and Lynx (who have just formed a white-power folk group for kids called Prussian Blue), and her youngest daughter, Dresden. For a decade now, Louis Theroux has been making programs about offbeat characters on the fringes of U.S. society. Now he revisits the people who have most intrigued him to try to discover what motivates them, and why they believe the things they believe. From his Las Vegas base (where else?), Theroux calls on these assorted dreamers, schemers, and outlaws--and in the process finds out a little about the workings of his own mind. What does it mean, after all, to be weird, or "to be yourself"? Do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us? And is there something particularly weird about Americans? America, prepare yourself for a hilarious look in the mirror that has already taken the rest of the English-speaking world by storm: "Paul Theroux's son writes with just as clear an eye for character and place as his father.... And he's funny.... Theroux's final analysis of American weirdness is true and new." -- Literary Review (England)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ten years after hosting a BBC series on weird American subcultures, Theroux decided to make a "Reunion Tour" and write a book about how his interviewees' lives had changed. Theroux's weird Americans were UFO enthusiasts, porn stars, Aryan Nation white supremacists, brothel prostitutes, gangsta rappers, become-a-millionaire scammers, Heaven's Gate survivors and, strangely, Ike Turner. Theroux (son of writer Paul Theroux) likes them because he believes they use weirdness to feel "alive," and that's "more important than telling the truth." Apart from that, what they have in common, 10 years later, is their unavailability—the porn star had become a computer programmer, the UFOer was inhabiting a different reality, and the prostitute was either born-again or doing drugs, hard to say. So Theroux settled for talking to others in their communities. Although he sometimes criticizes himself for botching things (trying unsuccessfully to attend the Millionaires seminar as the guest of a blacklisted former adherent), Theroux never criticizes his subjects, confining himself to what he hopes will be inoffensive questions—like, have you "ever thought of trying to be less racist?" As their rants become repetitious, these "weird" subjects become surprisingly boring. By the end, readers may wonder why Theroux still finds these people so "alive," so interesting. (Feb.)
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Review

"Alternately fascinating and sad." -- (Kirkus Reviews, 11/15/2006)

"An artful piece of work." -- Boston Sunday Globe, 2/11/07

"An engaging read for enthusiasts of examining the fringes." -- Miami Herald, 3/13/07

"Easy and enjoyable to read (Theroux's writing light, clever, and witty)...Convey[s] the beauty, absurdity, and pathos of life." -- Alarm, December 2006

"From time to time, Mr. Theroux does come up with a nice, fat fish to shoot at in his barrel. He is a facile, amusing writer." -- The New York Times, 2/7/07

"Marvelous collection of oddballs, fanatics and true believers...Wittily skeptical, breezily sardonic yet strangely fascinating." -- Providence Journal, 3/11/07

"Pure, voyeuristic entertainment. Theroux writes with a dry, witty sense of humor." -- Columbia Daily Spectator (Columbia University), 3/5/07

"Theroux writes in an enjoyable, well-paced fashion." -- BlogCritics.org, 2/19/07

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1 edition (January 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306815036
• ISBN-13: 978-0306815034
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #349,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where are the Readers for this Classic?, April 1, 2007

By 

Howard Goldowsky "ChessWriter" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures (Hardcover)

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.

"

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Weird is wonderful..., March 31, 2007

By 

Andi Miller (Caddo Mills, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures (Hardcover)

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.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It doesn't get much weirder than this: a compelling account of believers in the unbelievable, July 15, 2007

By 

William Courson "William Courson" (Montclair, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures (Hardcover)

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.