For the travel writer this is the ‘real America’, revealing itself not only in its friendly small towns, soul food diners and gun shows, but also in neglect and poverty

“Road Candy” is how I describe driving in the Deep South. You’re not driving fast, you’re meandering around back roads, stopping often and meeting people. The people in the south are very approachable, unlike the north and the south-west. In the south, you stop, people will say hello and you can engage them in conversation. In most cases, you’re also driving through beautiful places: parts of Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, the Ozark mountains in Arkansas.

The small towns of the Deep South say something about America that the big cities don’t. The towns show you how they have been abandoned by their own governments, how they have been left behind by education and politics. It’s in the small towns you see the effects of poverty and of the outsourcing of US manufacturing. You don’t see it in the big cities; big cities seem like booming places: Atlanta, Birmingham, Little Rock, but look closer at the smaller towns and you see the real America and the plight of poor America.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paul Theroux. Photograph: Elise Amendola/AP

Deep South review – Paul Theroux’s journey through the southern United States Read more

You don’t see that many ghost towns in America, but in the south there are plenty. Allendale, South Carolina, is an extreme example; it’s a hollowed-out town, just nothing there – and nothing on the horizon, either. The people in these small US towns are often living in spectacular rural landscapes but they seem like classic examples of peasants. You don’t think of the US as having a peasant society but it does.

Virtually every town has a little diner or a soul food restaurant, typically serving fried chicken, rice or catfish. These are not tourist meals; it’s where local people go to meet up. Lottie’s in Marion, Alabama, is a great place in a nice town where Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King’s wife, was born.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Station Cafe, downtown Bentonville, Arkansas. Photograph: Alamy

As a travel writer you want to negotiate your way among strangers, to meet people and hear their stories. Diners and restaurants tended to be on my route. Once I got to know them I’d think, well I can go to this town and not only have a meal but I’ll meet someone and find out something.

Travel in America isn’t an ordeal, it’s the opposite. It’s a country where there’s always a restaurant and a place to stay and where, in general, people will be friendly. In my book, Deep South, I write about the idea of the “mock ordeal” and that’s people pretending that America is a strange and hostile place. In travelling the US, the ordeal, or difficulty, is finding out what people are really like and making them trust you enough so that they’ll tell you their story.

Getting past Americans’ veneer of politeness isn’t always straightforward. That veneer can start with them saying: “Oh, hi. You’re from England? You talk strange. I thought you were from Australia.” But if you ask them where do you live, how many children do you have, who do you think is going to be the next president of the US, they’ll probably say: “What, are you writing a book? Who wants to know? Are you from the government?”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sunrise on Asheville, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Photograph: Alamy

Asheville, North Carolina, is like Cheltenham without the architecture. The setting, in the Blue Ridge mountains, is lovely and there are great places to stay and you’ll find good food but it would make me very restless being there. I need to get in the car and go somewhere and talk to people.

A gun show is like going to a masonic lodge … suddenly everyone’s on the same page. It tells you everything about a place: the people, how they talk about the past, how they talk about the government. I was in Charleston, South Carolina, and found out there was a gun show on – I had to go. People were telling me about the city’s sushi bars, harbour and architecture but I went to the show instead and it was great.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Waffle House restaurant roadside diner, Montgomery Alabama. Photograph: Alamy

To get the temperature of a place I’d tune in to local talk radio stations and listen to the ranting … usually it was the bible, or politics. Local rants – and local weather – are very interesting. Sometimes, though, I’d need it to be more soothing, so I’d listen to Philip Glass to put me in a trance-like state.

• Paul Theroux’s Deep South, with photographs by Steve McCurry, is published by Hamish Hamilton. To buy a copy for £16 including UK p&p visit bookshop.theguardian.com