All I Did Was Ask

Fülszöveg

"I'm Terry Gross, and this \s-FreshAir:. . But this is a book, not a radio show. You may be wondering what the point is of reading interviews that were meant to be listened to. I've asked myselSthat. But in going through transcripts in preparatioii fpxxhifr-feegfei^as ¦pleasailti^rsurprisedlhat so many of the interviews I remembered as having jjee^n good radio dso ma^^fpr enjoyable reading. In reading the ones gathered here—probably shouldii^ admit this^IVe learned things from them that went right by me in the studio . . . which is why I'm hoping you'll enjoy reading this selection of intewiews with writers, actors, directors, ! musicians, comics, and visual artists."
i —from the Introduction
Over the last twenty years, the voice of Terry Gross has become familiar to millions of radio listeners worldwide through her interviews with celebrated writers, actors, musicians, comics, and visual artists. Fresh Air with Terry Gross, a weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues... Tovább

Fülszöveg

"I'm Terry Gross, and this \s-FreshAir:. . But this is a book, not a radio show. You may be wondering what the point is of reading interviews that were meant to be listened to. I've asked myselSthat. But in going through transcripts in preparatioii fpxxhifr-feegfei^as ¦pleasailti^rsurprisedlhat so many of the interviews I remembered as having jjee^n good radio dso ma^^fpr enjoyable reading. In reading the ones gathered here—probably shouldii^ admit this^IVe learned things from them that went right by me in the studio . . . which is why I'm hoping you'll enjoy reading this selection of intewiews with writers, actors, directors, ! musicians, comics, and visual artists."
i —from the Introduction
Over the last twenty years, the voice of Terry Gross has become familiar to millions of radio listeners worldwide through her interviews with celebrated writers, actors, musicians, comics, and visual artists. Fresh Air with Terry Gross, a weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues produced by WHYY in Philadelphia, is one of public radio's most popular programs, broadcast on more than 430 National Public Radio stations. It's a show on which conversation about the arts has approached an art form.
For her first book, Terry has selected over three dozen interviews from the more than five thousand taped since the show's inception. These exchanges are of enduring interest, as lively on the page as they were on the air. By offering a glimpse into the minds of some of our finest artists, they illuminate our common culture. Here, Carol Shields reflects on facing death; John Updike comments on the irony of writing graphically about sex as a "shy and priggish" young man; Isabella Rossellini talks about aging; Ann Bannon describes her secret life writing lesbian pulp as a young wife; Conan O'Brien confesses he talked his parents into buying him tap dance lessons; Samuel L. Jackson looks back on his days in "hate-whitey" revolutionary theater; Johnny Cash tells us what he sounded like as a boy, before
(continuedfrom front flap)
his voice changed; and the cross-dressing actor Divine tells vi^hat happened after that infamous scene in Pink Flamingos.
Terry also provides the context for each interview, letting us in on what happened off the air. And in her Introduction, she does something she never does on her show: In discussing her approach to interviewing, she reveals a thing or two about herself.
TERRY GROSS started out in public radio in 1973 at WBFO, die NPR affiliate on die campus of her alma mater, the State University of New York at Btifialo. She became producer and host of Fresh Air 1975, when it was still a local program. Fresh Airyfon a Peabody Award in 1994 for its "probing questions, revelatory interviews, and unusual insights." In 2003, Terry herself received public radio's highest honor, the Edward R. Murrow Award. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, the writer Francis Davis.
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