Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

Maybe you think about mortality all the time, maybe you've never considered it for more than a moment. Either way, there are likely to be voices in Studs Terkel's most recent oral history, on the subject of death and what might or might not come after, that will speak to you. It's quite a range of speakers, young and old, funny and sad, religious and otherwise. I'll admit that some sections of the book were of less interest to me than others, but I've ended up giving it a top rating because the parts I liked, I liked a great deal. Also, as profound (and potentially depressing) as the subject matter is, the book is an oddly refreshing thing to read. I think this is partly *because* the subject is a big and eternal one, not something fleeting or connected to today's headlines. (Mortality, I suppose, is the one thing we all have in common.) And it's partly because the voices for the most part are so fresh and unvarnished -- it's common to complain that we don't hear enough from "real people" in the media (unless they're hurling insults at each other on Springer or whatever). Here a wide cross section of individuals speak their mind, and while a few are well-known, most seem to have been selected for another reason: they had something wise or thoughtful to say.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would rate this book below 5 stars, but I suppose at 71 years on this planet and having to deal with the diverse people that I have encounered, I should simply say that it's not suprising,and diversity is exactly what this book is about, that is if one can clear old mind sets and place originality of thought in it's place.Mr. Terkel allows this diversity of the human Psyche to play itself out in this well constructed biographical enterprise.I personally found this book to be a refreshing and interesting approach to the subject of death and highly recommend it, unless of course one is still thinking that he or she is immortal.

How can anyone not like this book? So realistic an approach to a subject we all ponder more and more as the years pass. This book brings new information as well, I read the other reviews here and I would have written the same if they hadnt been posted. The Sept 11th attacks did not come to me though and would not expect anyone to. The book is chilling to the bone and has me wanting to go back and read it again, I want to start about one quarter the way in as this book explodes at this point, but I am going to start from the beginning again. What I'm saying is the book has chronology or a line you definitly have to follow. Very supportive. I would like to recommend a book that really touches the subject in a different way, it breaks the circle! Karl Mark Maddox SB 1 or God

Studs Terkel, a Chicago treasure and Pulitzer Prize winner, could not have predicted how the release of his latest book would coincide with the events of September 11, 2001, in an amazingly poignant and timely fashion. Like his other books, this one is a collection of interviews with a broad selection of people from all walks of life. Terkel, seeking a way to cope with the death of his wife of 60 years, Ida, set out on a project to examine what people thought about the one experience we will all have but will not be able to describe once we've had it: Death. The Prologue, interviews with two New York City brothers, revisits them from an earlier book. How uncanny that one is a fireman, one a policeman. I got goosebumps reading about events at the World Trade Center before September 11th. The stories are, when all is said and done, a celebration of life and, for want of a better word, "spirit." For anyone searching for meaning in recent events in America, this book will be a tremendous solace. The book ends with Mamie Mobley, mother of Emmett Till (whose murder in the '60's was as much the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement as Rosa Parks' bus seat) and I cried through the whole chapter. The epilogue, a story of two women and two children is the perfect ending of this examination of life, death and family. Had the events of September 11th never happened, I would have recommended this book highly. Because of September 11th, this book just has to be a "best seller."

In America, we have hidden away death and the dead. Insulated by modern medicine, by a culture obsessed with youth, and by a pervasive need not to accept our own limited nature, we have put death aside. Studs Terkel, in this eloquent book, has helped restore death to its proper and healthy place as something to be contemplated, understood, and, bit by bit, accepted. This book is a collection of interviews with ordinary people who express themselves with extraordinary eloquence as they consider how death has touched and shaped their lives. From this diverse chorus of voices arises an understanding of death as both a creative and a destructive force, of death as a shaper of life rather than a void. The result is a book more about life than death, about the remarkable importance of every life and of every death.