Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith [Hardcover]

Studs Terkel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2001

A major new oral history from the Pulitzer Prize-winner, dealing with the universal experience of death.

At the age of 88, Studs Terkel has turned to the ultimate human experience, that of death and the possibility of life afterward. Death is the one experience we all share but cannot know. In Studs Terkel's powerful new book, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? a wide range of people address that final experience and its impact on the present in which we live. In talking about the ultimate and unknowable culmination of our lives, these people give voice to their deepest beliefs and hopes, reflecting on the lives they have led and what still lies before them. The result is a book that may well be Terkel's most popular, a universal and deeply moving account of death and religion.

This is the first time Terkel addresses the whole realm of religious belief and of expectations of an afterlife, including reincarnation. Interviewing a fascinating variety of people, he is able to come up with an extraordinary range of experience and of belief, all of which prove far more complex than Terkel anticipated.

In the tradition of his books Working and Coming of Age, Studs Terkel addresses an issue bound up with all of our lives, yet rarely discussed on its own terms. From a Hiroshima survivor to an AIDS caseworker, from a death-row parolee to a woman who emerged from a two-year coma, these interviewees find an eloquence and grace in dealing with a topic many of us have yet to discuss openly and freely.

Terkel also interviews the vast array of people who confront death in their everyday lives, whether as policemen, firemen, emergency health workers, doctors, or nurses. Many of the most moving interviews deal with AIDS, and how the disease has devastated whole communities and forced people to face death at the young ages we associate with centuries past.

In a stunning capstone to his extraordinary career, Terkel introduces to us the variety of our reactions to life's ultimate experience.

"My works had all been concerned with life and its uncertainties rather than death and its indubitable certainty. But what about the one experience none of us had, yet all of us will have: death? We, as a matter of course, only reflect on death, voice hope and fear, when a dear one is near death, or out of it. Why not speak of it while we're in the flower of good health? How can we envision our life, the one we now experience, unless we recognize that it is finite? In listening to these testimonies, this book is about life and its pricelessness, and of a vision, inchoate though it be, of a better one down here as well as, possibly, up there."—From the Introduction

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Mustering more spunk and battery juice than his overworked tape recorder, 88-year-old Studs Terkel cranks out another eclectic treasury of oral histories in Will the Circle Be Unbroken? This time, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Good War takes on death, a universal experience that solicits plenty of speculation, caution, and emotion from his 60-plus interviewees. Regular folks--ranging from the deeply religious to the deeply atheistic--share their life stories and their hopes or suspicions about the afterlife. Some are well-known, such as author Kurt Vonnegut, radio journalist Ira Glass, and folksinger Doc Watson (who, incidentally, appears in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's classic bluegrass album Will the Circle Be Unbroken). Others, including parents, artists, medics, and clergymen, share equally compelling stories about losing family members, patients, and friends; personal encounters with heavenly voices; and apparitions. Terkel lies low throughout the book; his voice is only heard in the short intros to each speaker's story and in the chuckle-inducing introduction, which tells the story of an asthmatic boy--Studs, of course--who ironically outlives his family and dear wife Ida. The result is a vibrant tapestry of life's full process, sure to stir compassion and inspiration in adults at any point on the curve. --Liane Thomas

From Publishers Weekly

In the past, Terkel (The Good War) has gotten people to talk about their concrete experiences, like family, war and the Depression, rather than an event that no one can talk about after having experienced it. Now Terkel, a gifted interviewer, encourages the subjects of this book to talk openly about their feelings regarding life's final frontier. The raconteurs who share their moving stories in this collection range from emergency room doctors and paramedics to public figures such as Kurt Vonnegut, NPR commentator Ira Glass and country music guitarist Doc Watson. Each of Terkel's subjects brings his or her unique insights to the mystery of death. For example, emergency room doctor Ed Reardon says we fear death because we don't understand it, and that it's hope that keeps us going while we're alive. Country woman Peggy Terry observes that death would not be so frightening if "we've fulfilled ourselves as human beings, not as collectors of stuff, money, and bank accounts." Tico Valle, a young Latino gay male, reflects on the death of his partner and the significance of reincarnation for understanding the meaning of life. Finally, Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Mobley, poignantly recalls her son's sacrifice: "Emmett had died that men might have freedom here on Earth. That we might have a right to life.... If Jesus Christ died for our sins, Emmett Till bore our prejudices." Terkel's refusal to overwhelm readers with his own philosophical reflections and his willingness to allow ordinary men and women to speak for themselves make this a stirring and enlightening collection that will lead readers to think more deeply about their own hopes and fears. (Oct.)Forecast: This is bound to be another bestseller for Terkel, who will tour five cities to promote it. First serial was sold to the Atlantic Monthly.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: New Press; 1 edition (November 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565846923
• ISBN-13: 978-1565846920
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,242,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Studs Terkel (1912-2008) was a free spirit, an outspoken populist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a terrible ham, and one of the best-loved characters on the American scene. Born in New York in 1912, he lived in Chicago for over eight decades. His radio show was carried on stations throughout the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep in death, Terkel finds life, October 10, 2001

By 

"csegall" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith (Hardcover)

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.

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly Poignant and Timely Given September 11, 2001, November 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith (Hardcover)

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."

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wisdom of the Many, March 18, 2002

By 

R. Walker - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith (Hardcover)

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.