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

Read an Excerpt

Introduction
I've courted death ever since I was six. I was an asthmatic child. With each labored breath, each wheeze, came a toy whistle obbligato. At my bedside, my eldest brother, to comfort me, would whistle back 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles,' in cadence with my

Author Q&A
A Conversation with Studs Terkel. Katie Bacon works at The Atlantic Monthly, where she edits articles for both the magazine and the Web site. Katie Bacon: You wrote in the introduction to Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, 'This is the one book I never thought

Reader's Guide
1. If you had been one of the people Terkel interviewed for Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, what would you have told him? 2. Do you talk about death with your close friends or family? Do you feel that you would have been able to open up to Terkel in the way

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.

Born in 1912, Studs Terkel grew up in Chicago. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1932 and from the University of Chicago Law School in 1934. He has acted in radio soap operas, been a disk jockey, a radio commentator, a TV emcee, and traveled all over the world doing on-the-spot interviews. Currently, he has a daily radio program on WFMT in Chicago that is syndicated throughout the country.

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