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Thirty years ago Gore Vidal suggested to Studs Terkel that death would be a good subject for oral history; it's a subject which, after all, nobody can talk about with any genuine authority. Will the Circle be Unbroken is the result - Terkel has compiled the views and experiences of 63 death professionals (doctors, nurses, soldiers, detectives, murderers) and death amateurs (all of us, death professionals included). For all the variety of life-experience that it contains, the book is reassuringly repetitive; we all fear much the same thing and cope with it in much the same way. A poignant contribution to the neglected literature of death that is also, of course, a handbook to living well, a guide to making the most of death's long prelude.
Studs Terkel needs no introduction. American broadcaster and oral historian, his sensitive interviews with people from all walks of life have earned him the Pulitzer Prize. Here he tackles the long-neglected subject of death. Terkel talks to doctors, detectives, clergymen, mothers, people with Aids; an actress, a singer, an undertaker, a nurse. There are a number of recurring themes: the importance of being able to die with dignity; the feeling that death is a moving on from the present dimension and being transformed into another state; the existence of a continued dialogue with the dead (which most sociologists presume has vanished); and the prevalence of a strong strand of fatalism in the American population. Interviewees feel that they were 'meant' to do certain things: 'There was something inside of me that just told me I had a purpose.' The 63 interviewees offer honest testimonies about dying, death and the possibility of an afterlife. No-one has any definitive answers but there are some remarkable insights. A blind folk singer suggests that the point of living is that the good in our lives is 'gleaned out and left to live in our offspring'. A paramedic reveals that he always knows the instant a person dies. 'You don't have to be a clinician to see the light leave their body, the instant that that body becomes inert substance. To me, it's a spiritual experience.' Biography lovers will be well aware that in most works the second most important and crucially interesting experience in the subject's life, his or her death, is invariably dismissed in a few words, sometimes only in a bleak sentence. In this one engrossing book, Studs Terkel attempts to redress the balance. He reminds us that there are positive ways to look at death and that ordinary people have not turned their backs on its presence in their daily lives. (Kirkus UK)
Time Out
‘This is a rich and rewarding seam of oral history’
See all Product Description
Thirty years ago Gore Vidal suggested to Studs Terkel that death would be a good subject for oral history; it's a subject which, after all, nobody can talk about with any genuine authority. Will the Circle be Unbroken is the result - Terkel has compiled the views and experiences of 63 death professionals (doctors, nurses, soldiers, detectives, murderers) and death amateurs (all of us, death professionals included). For all the variety of life-experience that it contains, the book is reassuringly repetitive; we all fear much the same thing and cope with it in much the same way. A poignant contribution to the neglected literature of death that is also, of course, a handbook to living well, a guide to making the most of death's long prelude.
Studs Terkel needs no introduction. American broadcaster and oral historian, his sensitive interviews with people from all walks of life have earned him the Pulitzer Prize. Here he tackles the long-neglected subject of death. Terkel talks to doctors, detectives, clergymen, mothers, people with Aids; an actress, a singer, an undertaker, a nurse. There are a number of recurring themes: the importance of being able to die with dignity; the feeling that death is a moving on from the present dimension and being transformed into another state; the existence of a continued dialogue with the dead (which most sociologists presume has vanished); and the prevalence of a strong strand of fatalism in the American population. Interviewees feel that they were 'meant' to do certain things: 'There was something inside of me that just told me I had a purpose.' The 63 interviewees offer honest testimonies about dying, death and the possibility of an afterlife. No-one has any definitive answers but there are some remarkable insights. A blind folk singer suggests that the point of living is that the good in our lives is 'gleaned out and left to live in our offspring'. A paramedic reveals that he always knows the instant a person dies. 'You don't have to be a clinician to see the light leave their body, the instant that that body becomes inert substance. To me, it's a spiritual experience.' Biography lovers will be well aware that in most works the second most important and crucially interesting experience in the subject's life, his or her death, is invariably dismissed in a few words, sometimes only in a bleak sentence. In this one engrossing book, Studs Terkel attempts to redress the balance. He reminds us that there are positive ways to look at death and that ordinary people have not turned their backs on its presence in their daily lives. (Kirkus UK)
Time Out
‘This is a rich and rewarding seam of oral history’
See all Product Description
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