When I interviewed Paul Theroux in 2021, on the publication of his 56th book (a novel), I asked whether there were places he still wanted to go and to write about. He told me: “It would be a long bucket list. I especially want to go back to places that I’ve lived in. It’s one way of seeing the way the world is trending; the way the world is or isn’t improving…”

His latest book isn’t about a place where he’s lived, but where one of his ancestors did. In True North: On the Road in Canada (Hamish Hamilton, £22, October 29), he starts with the story of Antoine Theroux, who migrated from Gascony in 1693 and was recruited as a marine in Nouvelle France. From the village of Yamaska, in Quebec, where Antoine eventually settled, Theroux sets off to explore the length and breadth of Canada — at a time when it’s being threatened with annexation by the president of the United States. From Newfoundland in the far east to Vancouver in the west, he travels the highways linking Quebec, Montreal, Toronto and the cities of the prairies. Along the way, the blurb says, “he meets farmers and fishermen, writers and activists, new immigrants and old-timers — each a vital part of this True North, each hoping for it to remain strong and free”.

The book — dedicated to the memory of his father, Albert, “un vrai Québécois dans son coeur” — won’t be published in the UK until the end of this month (Hamish Hamilton, £22, October 29), but is already out in Canada and the US. A brief extract appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, and the author has been interviewed by the writer Ryan Murdock (himself a Canadian) on his Personal Landscapes site.