Short description
Read by the author, this is Louis Theroux's hilarious and thought-provoking journey through weird America.
Long description
Read by the author, this is Louis Theroux's hilarious and thought-provoking journey through weird America. For ten years Louis Theroux has been making programmes about off-beat characters on the fringes of US society. Now he revisits America and the people who have most fascinated him to try to discover what motivates them, why they believe the things they believe, and to find out what has happened to them since he last saw them. Along the way Louis thinks about what drives him to spend so much time among weird people, and considers whether he's learned anything about himself in the course of ten years working with them. Has he manipulated the people he's interviewed, or have they manipulated him? From his Las Vegas base, Louis revisits the assorted dreamers and outlaws who have been his TV feeding ground. Attempting to understand a little about himself and the workings of his own mind, Louis considers questions such as: What is the difference between pathology and 'normal' weirdness? Is there something particularly weird about Americans? What does it mean to be weird, or 'to be yourself'? And do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us?
Review
Former Spy magazine contributor Theroux (son of writer Paul Theroux) offers ten surprisingly mild examples of American eccentricity.With some trepidation, the author embarked on a Reunion Tour to revisit many of the oddballs he'd encountered several years back while filming the BBC documentary Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. He hoped that his subjects didn't think too poorly of him after the mocking way they'd been presented. He found some subjects had changed. Thor Templar, Lord Protector of the Earth Protectorate, the man who once claimed to have decapitated space aliens, had refocused his energies on debunking the Bush administration. Erstwhile porn star JJ Michaels was living in suburban Missouri with a Ukrainian mail-order bride. Former prostitute Hayley, now calling herself Tammy, had a boyfriend and was volunteering at an animal sanctuary, though she danced at a strip club to make money. Some folks were still the same, including radical Aryan Nations member Jerry Gruidl and hardcore, stone-cold gangsta rapper Mello T. And 12-year-old white-supremacist twin sisters Lamb and Lynx Gaede were still extolling the virtues of the Nazi-sympathetic lifestyle with their folk band, Prussian Blue, while mom April (source of the pixie-faced twins' racism) cooed over new baby Dresden. Theroux's account of his hard-won, unsolicited visit with the Gaede family is morbidly appealing and thought-provoking. Less remarkable are his descriptions of follow-ups with grizzled music-biz veteran Ike Turner, still artfully dodging Tina questions; with the founder of a now-disbanded patriot community called Almost Heaven ; and with the few remaining survivors of the Heaven's Gate cult (best known for a mass suicide in 1997).A mixed bag of peculiar encounters with bizarre citizens, alternately fascinating and sad. (Kirkus Reviews)