Self-described
“guerilla journalist”
Studs Terkel, 89,
explores death
and faith in his
latest book while
continuing to shine
a spotlight on
“non-celebrated people.”
Still
“I just talk, and listen,” says author and radio host Studs Terkel, when asked how he entices
sources to bare their souls. “I’m just there with a tape recorder. I’m not from Mt. Olympus —
‘60 Minutes,’ or something like that.”
Working
by Ed Finkel, BSJ89
fter questioning author and radio host Studs
Terkel for about 20 minutes, Medill Dean
Loren Ghiglione opens the floor to the
audience in Fisk Auditorium. The first
question, from a student: “What do you think of Ayn
Rand?”
Terkel’s always-expressive face flashes with distaste,
and he hisses: “She’s the very antithesis of what I
believe — all selfishness and screw-you [attitude],” he
says, to a cacophonous reaction from the standingroom crowd at this Jan. 14 Crain Lecture Series event.
“She’s a pox. She makes those of us who are not on top
of the hill feel like nothing.”
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The news media — and society as a whole — follow that top-down approach to a distressing degree,
Terkel believes. “We recognize the police and the firefighters because of the World Trade Center. But
they’ve always been there,” he continues. “Who built
the Pyramids? Ayn Rand would say the Pharoahs. But
the Pharoahs didn’t lift a finger.”
Speaking by phone a few days later, Terkel makes it
clear that his revulsion toward Rand does not extend to
the student who asked about her.
“If I can find him, I’ll interview him for the [next]
book,” he says. “Nothing is alien to me. There’s something worthwhile inside every human being.”
hile writing his 13 books, most of them
oral histories, Terkel has made it his
mission to find that something in people
who, mostly, are not kings of the societal
hill. He quotes the German poet Bertolt Brecht, who
wrote: “When the Armada sank, when King Philip of
W
The Studs Terkel Bibliography
■ Giants of
Jazz (1957)
■ Division
Street:
America
(1965)
■ Hard Times
(1970)
■ Working (1974)
■ Talking to Myself (1977)
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■ American Dreams: Lost and
Found (1980)
■ “The Good
War”(1984)
■ The Spectator
(1999)
■ The Great
Divide (1988)
■ Race (1992)
■ Coming of
Age (1995)
■ My American
Century (1995)
■ Will the Circle
Be Unbroken?
Quite the Quipster
lthough he’s known
best for his earnest,
detailed interviews,
Studs Terkel has built
an impressive collection of snappy
one-liners in his years of writing
and lecturing. Here are a handful
of those he let loose at Medill:
On his ubiquitous tape
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recorder: “There’s only one other
person who was as enamored of
tape recorders as me. You know
who that was: Richard Nixon.”
On high technology: “I’m just
learning to use an electric typewriter — which is quite an
advance.”
On his health: “I have two
martinis a day and two cigars a
day. My doctor says, ‘At your age,
it doesn’t make a difference.’ ”
On religion: “I’m an agnostic
— an agnostic is a cowardly atheist.”
On death: “At age 89, I’m
working on a book about hope. I
may not finish the book. In fact, I
might check out now. It’d be very
dramatic, wouldn’t it?”
Spain wept, were there no other tears?”
from colon cancer. “One day, the old man takes a deep
Terkel says, “I’m interested in those who, through
breath, and a gasp, and Tommy says, ‘Finally, he’s
the centuries, shed those other tears, whose sweat and
died,’ ” Terkel says. “Just then the old man starts
blood and everything made the wheels go round, and
breathing again. He’s alive. Tommy says, ‘Son of a
wouldn’t even make a footnote.”
bitch!’ He says, ‘I love the old man, but
Terkel’s works include the
I was pissed.’ He wants the old man to
Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Good
die with dignity, instead of this. I’ve
War” and such bestsellers as
got people saying things they wouldn’t
“Working” and “Race” (see full bibotherwise say.”
liography facing page). His latest is
How does Terkel do that? “I don’t
called, “Will the Circle Be
know. I just talk, and listen,” he says.
Unbroken? Reflections on Death,
“I’m just there with a tape recorder.
Rebirth and the Hunger for a
I’m not from Mt. Olympus — ‘60
Faith.”
Minutes,’ or something like that. And,
“I was crazy to attempt this book,
I’m a guy who goofs up.”
because all of the books and interTerkel neither drives nor uses a
views I’ve done have been about
computer, and sometimes even the
experiences people have had,”
tape recorder flummoxes him. “That’s
Terkel says. “But what’s the one
an asset,” he says. “Mike Royko used to
experience none of us has had, but
attack me — friendly, he was my best
all of us will have? It’s a hell of a
friend — but he’d say, ‘You son of a
challenge.”
bitch, you deliberately do that, don’t
Terkel begins with a general
you?’ But then later on he says, ‘I guess
theme, but, like the mid-20th centu- Terkel signs copies of his latest book ,
you are pretty bad. . . . I guess you are
ry jazz musicians he adores, he
pretty
much a goofball.’ ”
“Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections
explores variations. “Improvisation on Death, Rebirth and the Hunger for a
Faith,” for a long line of eager seekers.
plays a tremendous role,” he says.
ll goofing off aside, Terkel
“The general theme is death, and
finishes his interviews and
how one faces it, or thoughts — do you believe in the
begins the editing process,
hereafter, or don’t you — or being the doctor, or what
which he likens to prospectthe paramedic’s life is like.”
ing for gold. “I start with 30 pages of transcribed stuff,
The book has interviews with everyone from medsingle spaced,” he says. “So the gold prospector starts
ical professionals, to people who survived near-death
filtering. Then he holds a handful of gold dust in his
experiences, to people who have faced modern-day
hand. That’s what he’s got. And finally, I’ve got 10
plagues like AIDS and breast cancer. Subjects range
pages. That’s still not a necklace, or a ring, or a watch.
from people Terkel meets on the street, to those whom
So you’ve got to put that together.
others recommend, to relatively well-known figures
“One of the toughest parts is leaving people out,”
like the mother of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy Terkel adds. For “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”, he
whose brutal murder helped to spark the civil rights
interviewed about 90 people and used about 60 of
movement.
those. “Usually, it’s even more than half” that get left
Terkel talks with a New York City firefighter
out, he says. “And I apologize to them in the beginning
named Tommy Gates whose father is wasting away
because they were just as good as the others.”
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