UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Hamish Hamilton is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published in the United States of America by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2015
First published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton 2015
Copyright © Paul Theroux, 2015
Photography copyright © Steve McCurry
Photography © Steve McCurry/Magnum
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Portions of this book appeared in Smithsonian magazine.
Some names in the text have been changed in the interest of privacy.
Excerpt from ‘The Arkansas Testament’ from The Poetry of Derek Walcott, 1948–2013 by Derek Walcott, selected by Glyn Maxwell. Copyright © Derek Walcott, 2014.
Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
ISBN: 978-0-241-96936-6
• PART ONE •
Fall: “You Gotta Be Going There to Get There”
INTERLUDE
The Taboo Word
• PART TWO •
Winter: “Ones Born Today Don’t Know How It Was”
INTERLUDE
The Paradoxes of Faulkner
• PART THREE •
Spring: Redbud in Bloom
INTERLUDE
The Fantastications of Southern Fiction
• PART FOUR •
Summer: The Odor of Sun-Heated Roads
Photographs
Photographs by Steve McCurry
Acknowledgments
Follow Penguin
Let the conversation begin...
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinukbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Listen to Penguin at SoundCloud.com/penguin-books
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk
To the memory of George Davis (1941–2013) of Medford, Massachusetts—athlete, traveler, teacher, civil rights stalwart, unsung hero of Selma’s Bloody Sunday—in gratitude for fifty years of friendship
“We felt like we were alone and couldn’t make a difference. But what happened with the movement? People grouped together. It was a beautiful thing.”
FICTION
WALDO
FONG AND THE INDIANS
GIRLS AT PLAY
MURDER IN MOUNT HOLLY
JUNGLE LOVERS
SINNING WITH ANNIE
SAINT JACK
THE BLACK HOUSE
THE FAMILY ARSENAL
THE CONSUL’S FILE
A CHRISTMAS CARD
PICTURE PALACE
LONDON SNOW
WORLD’S END
THE MOSQUITO COAST
THE LONDON EMBASSY
HALF MOON STREET
O-ZONE
MY SECRET HISTORY
CHICAGO LOOP
MILLROY THE MAGICIAN
MY OTHER LIFE
KOWLOON TONG
HOTEL HONOLULU
THE STRANGER AT THE PALAZZO D’ORO
BLINDING LIGHT
THE ELEPHANTA SUITE
A DEAD HAND
THE LOWER RIVER
MR. BONES
CRITICISM
V. S. NAIPAUL
NONFICTION
THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR
THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS
THE KINGDOM BY THE SEA
SAILING THROUGH CHINA
SUNRISE WITH SEAMONSTERS
THE IMPERIAL WAY
RIDING THE IRON ROOSTER
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
THE HAPPY ISLES OF OCEANIA
THE PILLARS OF HERCULES
SIR VIDIA’S SHADOW
FRESH AIR FIEND
DARK STAR SAFARI
GHOST TRAIN TO THE EASTERN STAR
THE TAO OF TRAVEL
THE LAST TRAIN TO ZONA VERDE
DEEP SOUTH
On the red clay roads of the African bush among poor and overlooked people, I often thought of the poor in America, living in just the same way, precariously, on the red roads of the Deep South, on low farms, poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills—people I knew only from books, as I’d first known Africans—and I felt beckoned home.
— The Last Train to Zona Verde:
My Ultimate African Safari (2013)
In this preposterous, unclassifiable book of my Travels, the thread of the stories and observations does not so much break as become intertwined, and in such a manner that, I am fully aware, much patience is needed to unravel and trace it in such an untangled skein.
— ALMEIDA GARRETT (JOÃO BAPTISTA DA SILVA LEITÃO),
Travels in My Homeland (Viagens na Minha Terra, 1846)
The stranger filleth the eye.
— Arab proverb, quoted by Richard Burton,
First Footsteps in East Africa (1856)