The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures By Louis Theroux
Pan, £7.99

FEW who saw it will ever forget Louis Theroux’s TV documentary on Neil and Christine Hamilton.

The Hamiltons were just one of the subjects on his When Louis Met... TV series. Others included Chris Eubank.

Always intrigued by such weird, and occasionally wonderful, characters, Louis sets out to discover more.

And what better place to start than the United States?

This book is actually a follow-up to his Weird Weekends TV show broadcast 10 years ago in that he sets out to revisit the characters he interviewed for that series.

Like his TV programme, what Theroux finds is so bizarre that, although it isn’t always comfortable – confronting neo-Nazis among others along the way – it makes you sit up and take notice, and it makes you think.

This is Theroux’s first book.  On this evidence it surely won’t be his last.