Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith » (Reprint)

One of the greatest oral historians of the 20th century, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, actor, and broadcaster Studs Terkel was a national treasure and a beloved institution in his native Chicago. His award-winning books, based on conversations with Americans from all walks of life, form a unique chronicle of a nation in the throes of socio-political change.

“IT’S THE UNGUARDED VOICES HE PRESENTS THAT STAY WITH YOU. . . . Terkel’s interviews may not allay fears about death. But reading them certainly encourages life while we have it.”
–The New York Times

Whether it’s Working or The Great War, the legendary oral histories of Studs Terkel have offered indispensable insights into all areas of American life. Now, at eighty-eight, the Pulitzer Prize winner creates his most important work on a subject few can comfortably discuss: death.

Here, in the voices of people both esteemed and unknown, are wise words, meaningful memories, and compassionate predictions about the experience of life’s end–and what may come after. A grad student explains how her two-year coma convinced her of the existence of reincarnation . . . A Hiroshima survivor reconciles her painful memories with the stoicism of her Japanese culture . . . Actress Uta Hagan expresses how her art is her religion and will be her legacy . . . Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler relives his World War II ordeal, after a torpedo left him in a lifeboat among injured and dying comrades . . . An AIDS counselor reveals why healthy gay men may require the most crucial psychological help . . . and a retired firefighter admits he “never felt so alive” as when he was doing his dangerous job.

From the sheer physical facts to the emotional realities to spiritual speculations, all aspects of death are openly expressed in this wonderful work, the stirring culmination of Studs Terkel’s brilliant career.

Book Magazine

Terkel has written about big issues before, but his latest oral history tackles the biggest: mortality. There are gut-wrenching dispatches from the front lines—from doctors, for example, who see strangers die every day—and heartrending accounts from those who've had to face their own mortality or that of loved ones, whether from the modern plagues of violence, cancer and AIDS or from just growing old. While some of these voices offer speculation (and quite a few good jokes) about what the afterlife might be like, there is wide agreement that what really matters is how we live our lives while we're here, and how we deal with the inevitability of our fate through personal beliefs. Some of Terkel's interlocutors might be described as extraordinary—people who, through luck, strength or some combination of the two, have beaten death. (There's even a typically wise and funny conversation with Dresden survivor Kurt Vonnegut.) But mostly, the book features ordinary people who nevertheless have extraordinary things to say on the meaning of life. This is a powerful, inspiring book.
—Eric Wargo