The tenor of the interview can be summed up in one word: "Ayahuasca."

		A review of "Blinding Light," by Paul Theroux, is available in today's print edition of the Post-Gazette.

Paul Theroux carefully printed it with a black felt-tip pen across my notebook, a not so-subtle hint that I needed all the help I could get to survive our intellectual encounter.

Ayahuasca is an Ecuadoran drug taken by the hero of Theroux's new novel, "Blinding Light." We were discussing it last month at the publisher's booth at BookExpo America in New York.

At least, we were making a polite attempt at discussing it, between frequent interruptions by fans who stopped to chat, thus forcing me to search for the thread of our chat.

Behind his round spectacles, Theroux seemed unimpressed with it all, including me. At 64, he has 43 published books on his resume, 28 of them fiction, the rest largely travel books, so he's used to attention.

"I've published about a book a year (since 1967)," he said blandly. "It's what I do."

Writer's block has not been a problem.

"Blinding Light," however, is the story of a travel writer who seeks out powerful drugs in Ecuador to restart his stalled creativity. The setup gives Theroux wide latitude to draw from both his travels and his experiences as a writer.

"Writing about your travels trains you to remember and re-create a scene," he explained. "That's what the best travel books do. I've been to Ecuador many times and know about the territory -- and the drugs -- well." Slade Steadman, whose one book has made him rich, can't find the motivation to write again.

"For a writer, it's like being impotent," said Theroux, "so he tries to find a way through drugs to find his power again. In fact, he tries to find a shortcut and it backfires."

Characteristically, Theroux has little sympathy for his creation. He's been a tough critic of the places where he's traveled and, mostly famously, of his mentor, V.S. Naipaul.

The two met in Africa in the 1960s, became close friends, then fell out. Theroux's 1998 memoir of their relationship, "Sir Vidia's Shadow," was unsparing in its negative portrayal of Naipaul.

Theroux continues to move on, his chief regret that in today's well-traveled world, he's "always traveling in the footsteps of somebody else. I want to go where nobody goes anymore, like the deepest inner city ghetto. That might make a for a good book."