Louis Theroux charts 'weirdness of Covid world' in Pan Mac deal

Louis Theroux has signed a deal with Pan Macmillan for a new book, Theroux the Keyhole, billed as a “heartwarming diary of the weirdness of family life in Covid world”.

Publishing director Ingrid Connell acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Robert Caskie at Robert Caskie Ltd. The book will be released on 11th November, backed by an “unmissable” PR and marketing campaign.

The blurb reads: “Like millions of others, Louis’ plans were mothballed by the onset of Covid. Unable to escape to the porn sets, prisons and maximum-security psychiatric units that are his usual journalistic beat, he began reporting on a location even more full of pitfalls and hostile objects of inquiry: his own home during a pandemic.

“Theroux the Keyhole is an honest, hilarious and ultimately heartwarming diary of the weirdness of family life in Covid world. A wife intolerant of his obsession with Joe Wicks’ daily workouts. Two teenage sons, inseparable from their video games, for whom he is increasingly ‘cringe’. A five-year-old happily spamming out videos on his own new TikTok account while on holiday with his oblivious family.”

The book also describes how he launched his podcast “Grounded”, finally got to the US to film a new Joe Exotic documentary and “aims his sights on the latest incarnation of the far right in a world becoming radicalised by social media”.

He said: “I am very excited and only slightly panicked and nervous to launch Theroux the Keyhole on an unwary world. It is a warts-and-all self-portrait taken at a time of enormous stress and weirdness. My previous book with Pan Macmillan Gotta Get Theroux This took a wide-angle look at my life and career so far. But this is an extreme close-up of my experience of 2020 and 2021. Work stress, home stress, pandemic stress. It peels more layers away, shows more of the me that you don’t see on TV, while at the same time continuing the never-ending pleasure that is punning Theroux-based titles.”

Theroux has sold 281,914 books sold for £2.4m with Nielsen BookScan, with The Call of the Weird (Pan) his bestseller on 115,413 copies sold to date of the 2006 paperback.

Connell commented: “We’re really excited to be publishing a new book from the incomparable Louis Theroux. Theroux the Keyhole is his most revealing book yet, as he turns his questioning eye on himself and tries to make sense of our weird and scary world. You will laugh out loud, wince in sympathy and enjoy spending time getting to know Louis that little bit better.”