The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures

Louis Theroux

Sep 2008 · Pan Macmillan

About this ebook

After a decade of making documentaries about offbeat characters on the fringes of US society, Louis had the urge to return to America and track down the people who most fascinated him. It would be a reunion tour, but this time without the cameras and the sense of performance being filmed inevitably brings. It would allow him to get closer to people, to discover what really motivated them and what had happened to the assorted dreamers, outlaws and eccentrics since he last saw them.

On a journey that took him from the porn sets of Los Angeles to the gangsta rappers of Memphis, from a convention of UFO contactees in Arizona to Northern Idaho for a festive get-together of neo-Nazis, he asked what 'weird people' have to tell us about our own secret natures. Had he learned anything about himself by being among them? Do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us?

Louis Theroux's first book is a hilarious, thought-provoking and at times surreal voyage into the heart of weirdness.

Ratings and reviews

I'm aware this is at least partly my fault but there are two copies of this in the Google play library with completely different covers, which led to me buying it again a year after I first read it (because my phone indicated I didn't own it). Like I said if I'd paid more attention this wouldn't have happened but it's still pretty annoying to have thrown 8 quid away because it's been put in the book store twice.

About the author

Louis Theroux is an award-winning journalist and documentary film maker whose programmes are shown all over the world. In twenty years of working, he has spent time with inmates at San Quentin prison and Miami Jail; gambled with the high-rollers at a Las Vegas mega-casino; stalked game with trophy hunters on South Africa's wild animal farms, and spent time getting to know dementia patients and their families in Phoenix, Arizona. His feature-length documentary, My Scientology Movie, was released in 2016 and his television documentary series Dark States aired in 2017.