Talk Easy x Search Engine

Summary

Search Engine Podcast
Episode: Talk Easy x Search Engine
Date: October 3, 2025
Host: PJ Vogt
Featuring: Sam Fragoso & Terry Gross

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Overview

This special episode features an in-depth, moving conversation between Sam Fragoso (host of Talk Easy) and the legendary Terry Gross, reflecting on 50 years of Fresh Air, the art and ethics of interviewing, personal loss, and the transformative power of storytelling. Originally aired on Talk Easy, PJ Vogt presents this conversation as a master class in how to conduct interviews and as an intimate meditation on work, grief, and personal growth.

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1. The Craft of Interviewing (05:44–18:56)

Opening Reflections: Fresh Air’s Influence

• PJ Vogt introduces Fresh Air and Terry Gross, noting her unparalleled preparation and ability to elicit vulnerability from guests:

  “You can feel … she’s getting a public person to reveal something new and genuine about themselves.” (03:10–03:35)

• Vogt describes hearing Sam Fragoso’s interview with Terry Gross as “the platonic ideal of the conversation I’d hoped to have” (04:00) and notes Fragoso’s attempt to “Terry Gross, Terry Gross.”

Terry Gross’s Approach and Philosophy

• Gross reflects on the autobiographical interview and the balance between honesty and myth-making:

  “Some books and some interviews... a little bit of self-mythologizing ... intentionally making your life into the moral of the story … which I really do not believe.” (09:31–10:30)

• She’s skeptical that hard work alone explains artistic success:

  “Working hard helps... But I could work 10,000 hours … I would never be great... It takes more than time.” (10:46)

Preparation and Vulnerability

• Gross hesitates to call interviewing an art, fearing it’s pretentious. (11:22–11:27)
• She describes her childhood, parental mottos, and the influence of negative thinking—“Hope for the best, expect the worst”—on her worldview. (13:31–14:02)

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2. Early Life, Writing, and Finding a Path (13:09–35:59)

Childhood and Early Ambitions

• Gross recalls writing lyrics in high school, hearing them sung by basketball players, and her surprise at the affirmation this brought. (18:30)
• She never seriously considered lyricism or writing as a career after discouraging experiences in college. (19:23–20:20)

Independence and Feminism

• Gross describes dropping out of college to hitchhike across the country, partly as a rebellion but also as indecision:

  “I wasn’t thinking for myself and making the decision ... I was thinking, like, which of these two sides am I gonna choose?” (25:59)

• It’s only later, influenced by feminist literature and consciousness-raising groups, that she starts to ask: “What do I really want out of life?” (26:23)

Serendipity Leads to Radio

• After an unfulfilling job, Gross discovers WBFO, an NPR affiliate, and is drawn to radio through a friend’s serendipitous coming out on air. This opens a space for Gross to audition for the feminist show, setting her on her path. (33:41–35:59)

Key Quote:

"If that hadn't happened, who knows what I would be doing now? It would probably not be radio." (35:36)

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3. The Power of the Medium & the Early Days of Fresh Air (36:00–43:14)

Discovering the Power of Radio

• Fragoso asks if Gross’s roommate’s on-air coming out made her see radio as a unique space for disclosure. Gross agrees, reflecting on the impersonal intimacy the medium offers. (36:26–37:13)

From Amateur to Professional

• Gross shares how in her first radio shows, she basically read term papers on air—“It was the worst radio you can imagine.” (38:48–39:21)

Turning Points–1978

• Three key things:
  • Danny Miller joins Fresh Air (her first key collaborator).
  • She meets her future husband, Francis Davis, through his writing (and they build a partnership both personal and professional).
  • Bill Siemering, NPR founder, becomes her station manager, and helps take Fresh Air national.
• Gross:

  “It was fun... It's because of Bill that we became a national show. He told NPR we were worthy.” (41:26–42:09)

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4. On Interviewing Icons & Shaping the Show (43:35–52:12)

Highlights from Decades of Interviews

Going National and the Evolving Format

• The show's format evolved for syndication—segmenting interviews for station needs, sometimes drawing criticism from early listeners. Gross remembers:

  “Spring arrived and Fresh Air died.” (47:14)

Ethos of Interviewing

• Gross seeks to explore the connection between artists’ lives and their work:

  “What created the person whose work we love and who is that person, do you think?” (48:18)

The English Major's Advantage

• Gross credits her literary background for her ability to “read between the lines” and draw out stories with depth and nuance. (49:03–49:55)

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5. Ethics, Boundaries, and Public Shifts (52:16–63:56)

Reflecting on Interview Boundaries

• Discussing the infamous Monica Lewinsky walkout (53:12–58:23), Gross wrestles with the discomfort and ethics of asking intensely personal questions, noting she felt pressure both as a journalist and human being:

  “I had very mixed feelings about having done it. … She wasn’t comfortable with the question. I wasn’t comfortable asking it.” (56:02–57:24)

• Fragoso reflects on how the culture—and interview standards—have shifted, asking Gross if she would do the same interview today.

• Gross:

  “I’m not sure I would have done the interview.” (59:45)

Limits of the Autobiographical Interview

• Gross cautions that even in honest settings, there’s always much a guest withholds or doesn’t see in themselves:

  “There’s so much you do not know about the person you’re interviewing, no matter how forthcoming they may seem.” (63:13)

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6. Grief, Partnership, and the Meaning of Work (63:56–76:23)

On Loss—Joan Didion and Personal Grief

• Gross discusses the impact of interviewing Joan Didion about grief, and contrasts Didion’s “magical thinking” after her husband’s death with her own experience losing Francis.

  “For me... what I kept a lot of were his vinyl albums and his CDs... That’s my shrine to Francis. Now I have his ashes, and his ashes are on one of the record shelves. So his ashes are in an urn … surrounded by the music that he loved.” (69:39)

Working Through Grief

• Continuing to work helped Gross cope:

  “It was helpful to me because I don’t think I would have survived if I was just home the whole time… I wanted to make sure that I maintained part of my life that was important to me.” (71:10)

Asking Personal Questions—When It's Family

• Gross acknowledges it is much harder to ask deeply personal questions to loved ones than interviewees, and she backs off when she senses discomfort:

  “…with an interviewee … you feel empowered to ask anything. … With people I’m really close to… it’s a different relationship.” (73:33–74:24)

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7. On Legacy, Public Media, and Looking Forward (79:47–96:37)

Eulogizing Francis Davis—Finding the Words

• On writing her on-air tribute:

  “I don’t have the words. … I’m not a great writer. … But part of how I fell in love with him was his words.” (80:34)

Reflections on Work, Retirement, and Meaning

• Gross has no intention of retiring:

  “Not now, no… work really gives my life a focus and meaning. I find my work very meaningful.” (82:56)

Threats to Public Radio

• Gross laments recent funding losses and the ideological mislabeling of public media:

  “If having on people of different backgrounds… that’s a sign of America. It’s not a political position. It’s a sign of representing human beings…” (89:50–90:50)

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8. Memorable Moments & Quotes

Maurice Sendak’s Legacy (91:41–96:37)

• Sendak, in a deeply moving appearance, shares:

  “I have nothing but praise now, really, for my life. ... Oh God, there are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die. But I’m ready. I’m ready. ... You are the only person I have ever dealt with who brings this out in me. ... Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.” (91:41–93:45)

• Gross plays this over in her mind to push back negative thought cycles after her husband’s death:

  “So many times I play him back in my head saying, live your life. … My emotions have been very close to the surface since Francis died.” (93:56–94:18)

On What a Good Day Looks Like

• Gross:

  “A good day… is when an interview goes well, or … just working with the people I work with. … To feel content and comfortable in my own body and in my mind. … That’s what I seek.” (96:43–97:54)

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9. Final Reflections on 50 Years of Interviews (98:51–101:14)

• Does interviewing others help Terry understand herself?

  “It’s been helpful to me to hear people talk about things that I would be embarrassed to admit to myself… so it’s helped me feel more comfortable within myself and also help me feel that there’s value in sharing stories, even maybe mine.” (99:24)

• On being less “inhibited” as an interview subject:

  “I feel like I’ve been at this long enough that maybe I can say more about myself and say it comfortably.” (100:07)

Sam Fragoso’s Tribute:

• “There would not be one episode of Talk Easy if it weren’t for you.” (101:01)

Terry Gross:

• “Thank you, Sam. It means a lot to me because I admire your work a lot. I think you’re really good.” (101:05)

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Key Timestamps

• 05:44: Sam Fragoso welcomes Terry Gross and starts the conversation.
• 09:31: Gross reflects on the value of autobiographical interviews vs. myth-making.
• 14:00: Gross describes family mottos and “negative thinking.”
• 25:57: Gross opens up about not truly deciding for herself in early adulthood.
• 33:41: Gross discovers radio through serendipity.
• 38:48: Gross’s early radio “term paper” phase.
• 41:26: 1978: Meets key collaborators and husband, Francis Davis.
• 47:14: Going national; shift in show’s format draws criticism.
• 53:12: Lewinsky walkout; reflecting on interviewing ethics.
• 69:39: Gross’s altar to late husband — his records and ashes.
• 73:05: Gross on the difficulty of discussing death with loved ones.
• 80:34: Writing and reading her tribute to Francis Davis.
• 82:56: On meaning and not retiring.
• 89:50: NPR’s value and the challenges facing public media.
• 91:41: Profound exchange with Maurice Sendak—“Live your life.”
• 99:24: Has interviewing others helped Gross understand herself?
• 101:01: Fragoso’s on-air tribute to Gross’s influence.

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Tone & Atmosphere

The tone is intimate, direct, vulnerable, and at times irreverently funny—reflecting both Sam Fragoso’s admiration for Gross and her own blend of self-deprecation and moral seriousness.
Gross is by turns wary, candid, humorous, and moved. The conversation layers professional reflection with deep personal loss, modeling the possibilities—and limits—of intimacy in the interview format.

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For New Listeners

This episode stands out as both a practical course in the art of the interview and a moving meditation on change, ambition, grief, and living authentically. Whether interested in radio, self-discovery, or the changing media landscape, listeners will find lessons on the unguarded moments that define a life’s work.

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Notable Quotes

• “There’s so much you do not know about the person you’re interviewing, no matter how forthcoming they may seem.” — Terry Gross (63:13)
• “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.” — Maurice Sendak (93:45)
• “I have a life. I have friends. I have work that I really treasure. ... I have that in a very profound way.” — Terry Gross (94:51)
• “If having on people of different backgrounds...that’s a sign of America. It’s not a political position.” — Terry Gross (90:50)
• “So it’s helped me feel more comfortable within myself and also help me feel that there’s value in sharing stories, even maybe mine.” — Terry Gross (99:24)

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

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[Terry Gross]

This.

[Narrator/Host]

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[Sam Fragoso]

Terry Gross.

[Terry Gross]

Yes.

[Sam Fragoso]

Welcome to the show.

[Terry Gross]

Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for coming to Philly to do this. Honored.

[Sam Fragoso]

I've never been in Philadelphia. This feels like the perfect occasion to come to Philadelphia. How are you doing?

[Terry Gross]

I'm doing okay. You know, you probably know my husband died a few months ago, but under the circumstances, I think I'm really doing okay.

[Sam Fragoso]

Has it been easy to get back to work in the aftermath of that? He passed April 14th, right?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. Well, you know, I took a couple of weeks off just to, you know, organizing the funeral and dealing with some of the immediate stuff you have to deal with. And during that two weeks, I also wrote the on air tribute I did to him. I wanted people to, like, know who he was.

[Sam Fragoso]

You came back on the air, I think, two and a half weeks after he passed and recorded an episode, a kind of eulogy to him.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, it was more like, this is who my husband was. I'm gonna read you excerpts of his writing. I'm gonna play you the music that he loved, that he was writing about in these excerpts, so you get to know him. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about, like, oh, the love we shared, the great moments that we had. I did mention a couple of things, like how we met, but it was mostly like, here's something else that he wrote and he loved this record. And here's why.

[Sam Fragoso]

I do want to talk about the love you shared. Oh, we'll wrap our way back to that. So since then, you've been back at work making what, four shows a week?

[Terry Gross]

It was 10, I think it went to nine and went to eight.

[Sam Fragoso]

Okay. So it's slowly gone down.

[Terry Gross]

It was like a countdown clock.

[Sam Fragoso]

Okay. So you're back at work since then.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

It's my understanding that on Fridays, you and your staff have what you've described as a marathon meeting.

[Terry Gross]

Yes.

[Sam Fragoso]

About who's coming on the show and who's not coming on the show. And since our editorial calendars are often very similar, I thought, why. Why don't you share in this safe space who's coming on so that we can prepare our calendar around yours?

[Terry Gross]

What's your next question?

[Sam Fragoso]

Okay, my next question is, can you at least tell me what day you plan to sit with David Mamet on Fresh Air?

[Terry Gross]

Yes, that is very unlikely. I heard your interview with him.

[Sam Fragoso]

I heard you may be blocking off a whole week for Mamet in September. Yeah, Mamet Week, I think it's called.

[Terry Gross]

I think it's called Mamet Week. So I want to just go on the record and correct the things that he said about me. Before we get to him walking out, there's a moment in Sam's interview with him when he's talking about how all his friends abandoned him, and he mentions, like, TV shows and npr, the Atlantic magazine. I forget if he mentioned the New Yorker.

[Sam Fragoso]

I think the New York Times.

[Terry Gross]

The New York Times, yes. And then he mentioned me by name, and he said, you know, that I had abandoned him because I used to have him on a lot on a.

[Sam Fragoso]

Show he called All Things Considered.

[Terry Gross]

Yes. And he said that Terry Gross from All Things Considered, she even came to Vermont. And then he also said that in 2008, when we and everyone else rejected him, we sent him a form letter, which we never do. So I'll start there. We don't send out form letters. I don't host All Things Considered. I don't work for All Things Considered, and I've never been to his place.

[Sam Fragoso]

In Vermont, so I'm glad we cleared the air.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. It's just that when somebody gets everything wrong about me, I wonder, what else are they getting wrong?

[Sam Fragoso]

You know, in the prologue of your book, all I did was ask you write that on your bad days, you wonder whether the autobiographical interview offers much more than the potential for gossip or voyeurism. Since we're here celebrating 50 years of fresh Air. Half century in. Where are you at on that these days?

[Terry Gross]

I still believe in it. I think a lot of what art is about is finding your life reflected back at you with words or stories that you wouldn't have thought of yourself, and that there can be something very clarifying, very affirming about it. And I also think with an autobiographical interview, when somebody's reasonably honest about their flaws and shortcomings as well as their great triumphs, you can find yourself in that or the opposite. In art and in autobiographical interviews, you can learn about people who are totally unlike you and still see what you share. You know, the shared humanity. So I still have a lot of faith in them. There's some books and some interviews where I feel like, well, there's a little bit of self mythologizing here, a little bit of, like, intentionally making your life into the moral of the story is. Or like anybody can achieve this. All you have to do is work hard, which I really do not believe.

[Sam Fragoso]

What do you not believe?

[Terry Gross]

I think that some people have a gift. And working hard helps them enhance the gift, focus the gift, improve the craft. But I could work 10,000 hours learning to play piano, or 10,000 hours writing or something. I would never be great. Do you know what I mean? It takes more than time. It takes a certain aesthetic that you're kind of born with or that gets ingrained in you. It just takes more than time. So that's why I don't believe in, like, hard work. And anybody could do this. Some things, yes, but not art.

[Sam Fragoso]

Do you think you had some gift that was innate in asking questions?

[Terry Gross]

Well, I wouldn't call interviewing necessarily an art.

[Sam Fragoso]

You don't think it's an art?

[Terry Gross]

I don't know. I just feel like as an interviewer, if I called it an art, it would sound pretentious and self aggrandizing.

[Sam Fragoso]

You've done over 15,000 interviews over 50 years. At what number are you allowed to be a little self aggrandizing?

[Terry Gross]

Well, the number isn't what. I don't think I'm a bad interviewer. Don't get me wrong. I don't think I really suck at this, and somehow I'm still doing it.

[Sam Fragoso]

Yeah, that would be shocking. Do you think it's a coincidence in talking about your biography that someone who has devoted their career to asking questions came of age in a house where questions were not exactly encouraged?

[Terry Gross]

Revealing things to the outside world wasn't encouraged. You can ask questions at home.

[Sam Fragoso]

You were allowed to ask questions at home. Yeah, because in many interviews you talked about how there's a lot of questions you wish you asked your parents, but you never did, or you felt like you never could.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, those were mostly questions about death. Because I think maybe the context of that was talking about the Maurice Sendak interview in which he knew he didn't have long to live. And he was talking about facing Dying. He was talking about losing friends. Those are subjects my parents didn't want to talk about. They knew that they were dying when they were dying, but you couldn't talk to them about that. They weren't from the age of talking personally like that.

[Sam Fragoso]

What about when you were growing up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, you know, in a post war apartment building that I think was built on an old racetrack?

[Terry Gross]

That's what I was told. And. Yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

What was the environment like between you and your parents and your brother, also your older brother? What were the kind of conversations you did have?

[Terry Gross]

Well, my older brother was like a role model for me when I was growing up in the sense that he was the person who got the record player and he was the person who bought records, and so I really benefited from that. He knew what label people were on, so it's not like he had a huge collection, but he had some good stuff.

[Sam Fragoso]

You said once that you were, quote, brought up believing that there's some positive value in thinking negatively.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, yes. I think it's a very Kinahara Jewish thing. If you think something is gonna turn out badly, then you won't be disappointed when it turns out badly.

[Sam Fragoso]

Sounds a little bit like a Mel Brooks quote.

[Terry Gross]

Hope for the best, expect the worst is a quote. It's a quote from one of his lyrics. And that's like, when asked for, do you have a motto? That's what I always.

[Sam Fragoso]

That's your motto.

[Terry Gross]

But also it was like, if you expect good things to happen, they're not gonna. You know, it went along with my father's, you know, expression. No one ever said life was about pleasure. You know, like weekends you get some time off where you're allotted a certain amount of pleasure, but during the week.

[Sam Fragoso]

It'S like, what was your mother's motto?

[Terry Gross]

She didn't really have one.

[Sam Fragoso]

Yeah, most people don't have mottos.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, I mean, it wasn't literally his motto, but. But it's something that I heard and certainly that I probably internalized.

[Sam Fragoso]

Taking this maybe too literally, but what did that inner monologue of thinking negatively sound like for a young Terry Gross?

[Terry Gross]

Frustrating. A little annoying, but I think I internalized it anyway.

[Sam Fragoso]

What part was frustrating?

[Terry Gross]

Well, you want some time for pleasure. And like, when I was a little child, this was more. When I was a teenager.

[Sam Fragoso]

Right.

[Terry Gross]

When I was a teenager, I was still a really good student, doing really well in school, but hanging out. I wouldn't exactly call myself a theater kid, but we had something called Sing in Brooklyn schools where you write A long sketch. Take Broadway melodies and write lyrics to those melodies. So I was one of the lyricists.

[Sam Fragoso]

For all four years. You were one of the lyricists, right?

[Terry Gross]

For at least three of them. But anyways, yeah. I want a pleasure in my life being a lyricist.

[Sam Fragoso]

Sounds pleasurable.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, it was. It was great. I loved it.

[Sam Fragoso]

When you were writing those songs in high school, it's my understanding that you once overheard basketball players sing your lyrics. Now you remember what those lyrics are, don't you?

[Terry Gross]

I'm too embarrassed to reveal them.

[Sam Fragoso]

Hold on. You've said in the past that you won't say them. What if we sang them together?

[Terry Gross]

We're not gonna do that. There's no way we're gonna do that. You don't even know the lyrics.

[Sam Fragoso]

Well, that's why if you teach me.

[Terry Gross]

No, just give me.

[Sam Fragoso]

Imagine yourself as Stephen Sondheim. Give me one line.

[Terry Gross]

Okay. I may live to regret this.

[Sam Fragoso]

That was the alternate title of your book, right?

[Terry Gross]

The alternate title of a lot of my life. Okay, so the premise is kind of like a ripoff of how to Succeed in Business without really Trying, where the main character finds a rule book for success. Like a self help book for success called how to Succeed in Business without really Trying. We kind of used the same premise and the premise was that we wanted to be like cool and we didn't know how to be cool. We needed a handbook.

[Sam Fragoso]

I wish I had that in high school.

[Terry Gross]

Or that we were going to create the handbook. I think we needed the handbook. And so the melody was to l' Chaim from Fiddler on the Roof. And the opening lyric was. The book will be our mentor, our noteworthy source of the rules. It will teach us explicitly, in sheer simplicity, step by step, to be cool. The school will marvel at how cool and groovy we look. They won't suspect that the gimmick is that we are mimickers of a 16 page book or something like 60 page book.

[Sam Fragoso]

Excellent.

[Terry Gross]

I'm done.

[Sam Fragoso]

Excellent.

[Terry Gross]

I'm totally done with the interview. No, no, I'm not gonna pull a mammoth.

[Sam Fragoso]

Or a Bill riley or Bill.

[Terry Gross]

O'Reilly or several other people. I can.

[Sam Fragoso]

Or Faye Dunaway.

[Terry Gross]

Or Faye Dunaway or Monica Lewinsky or Monica.

[Sam Fragoso]

Or Lou Reed. After six minutes in 1996. Yes, I can keep going. Of fresh air walkouts.

[Terry Gross]

It's an illustrious roster. I have to say.

[Sam Fragoso]

It's a really great roster. That was fantastic.

[Terry Gross]

Listen, if I really live to regret it, you're going to know about it.

[Sam Fragoso]

I believe it and as will our listeners. That was Amazing.

[Terry Gross]

I don't hear the compliments. I don't hear.

[Sam Fragoso]

Like, I said, that was amazing.

[Terry Gross]

No, you think it's amazing that I revealed it.

[Sam Fragoso]

Yeah, you're right. You caught me on that.

[Terry Gross]

I know.

[Sam Fragoso]

When you were sharing the lyrics, I was like, God, how am I gonna remember to sing all these? This is, of course, this is very long. Was it satisfying to hear your fellow classmates singing your words?

[Terry Gross]

Oh, it was great. I felt so affirmed. Cause I wasn't in with, like, the basketball crowd. Even though I was what was called a booster, not a cheerleader, but somebody who just kind of screamed loud and got to wear, like, a special jacket with the team's name on it. But I didn't really know the guys, and they were, like, the cool guys in school. So a couple of those guys singing a lyric that I'd written that was like.

[Sam Fragoso]

I mean, so towards the end of high school, did you feel like, oh, I could go down this road. This could be a job or this could be a career?

[Terry Gross]

Being a lyricist? Yeah, absolutely not.

[Sam Fragoso]

No.

[Terry Gross]

No. I don't know if I was thinking as deeply about it. I was a high school kid reading, you know, existentialist essays and novels. But I don't know how much I was really comprehending all of the subtext.

[Sam Fragoso]

But you were enjoying it?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

From there, where did you want to go?

[Terry Gross]

Well, initially, I wanted to be a writer, but I got disabused of that pretty early on.

[Sam Fragoso]

In college, in your freshman year?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. One of the teachers read one of my essays, some of it out loud, and said, you know. And he wrote on my paper, like, you have the ability to really, like, break up language and do something new. And then the other teacher assigned us just, like, write me a story. And I was used to, like, having.

[Sam Fragoso]

An assignment, being told what to do.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. Like, write an essay about this or a story about that. And I said to him, like, I don't know what to write about. And he said to me, well, write a love story. And I thought, that sounds really condescending. I doubt he'd say that to one of the male students. And I wasn't, like, reading love stories or romance stories or anything. So I just felt kind of lost and realized, I don't think I'm a writer.

[Sam Fragoso]

Even then you knew you needed an assignment?

[Terry Gross]

Well, yeah. That's the nice thing about interviewing is that you're helping to tell a story, but you don't have to actually write it, because writing. I don't know about you. Do you find writing easy?

[Sam Fragoso]

I don't Was it Dorothy Parker who said, I hate writing. I love having written. That's about how I feel.

[Terry Gross]

I only love after having written if I think it's good, which I usually. I don't hold my writing in very high esteem.

[Sam Fragoso]

Me either.

[Terry Gross]

I like your opening essays, if I may call on that before introductions, whatever, before your interviews. They're really well written.

[Sam Fragoso]

Some of them are good.

[Terry Gross]

I like the ones I've heard.

[Sam Fragoso]

Thank you. Terry, in 1968, you leave home for college in New Buffalo. By your sophomore year, you had already decided to drop out and to hitchhike across the country.

[Terry Gross]

Decided is a strong word because I was really torn.

[Sam Fragoso]

Did your parents try to stop you?

[Terry Gross]

They definitely tried to stop me. They flew up to Buffalo.

[Sam Fragoso]

They flew up, yeah.

[Terry Gross]

They told me that basically they were going to cut me off.

[Sam Fragoso]

Do you remember that conversation?

[Terry Gross]

Not the details of it, but I remember it was horrible. I mean, I love my parents and although I needed to rebel against them, I didn't want to break their hearts. My father, actually, at least my mother told me, because they were in Brooklyn, I was in Buffalo. My mother said, like your father, you've made your father literally sick. He's in bed. And it was just like tearing me apart. But I felt so much like they were trying to hold on so tight that unless I kind of really cut the string for a few minutes, that I'd always be capitulating to their idea of who I should be or who I was. And I needed the ability to change. I think one of the real values of college, in addition to what you learn in the classroom, especially if you're privileged enough to go to out of town school or if you have the desire to go to out of town school, not everybody does, is that you get to rewrite yourself in ways that you later realize are hilarious. But some of it was really necessary.

[Sam Fragoso]

Who did they think you should be?

[Terry Gross]

A good student, well behaved, somebody who they could hold out as, you know, a good daughter who would make them happy according to their standards. And you have to keep in mind, too, there's this huge generation gap at this point. I see all these people now who are so close to their parents. And it was just the opposite with my generation and many people I knew.

[Sam Fragoso]

And they were Eastern European.

[Terry Gross]

My grandparents were Eastern European immigrants and my parents were, you know, grew up during the Depression. My father had to drop out of high school because his father died and he had to help support the family. You know, my mother went to, like, secretarial school because that's what you did if you were a woman or a girl, you know, she certainly didn't have the money for college. My mother was, like, really smart, but I don't think she would have ever thought of it. And she read all the time, and she'd go to the library every week and take out a new book or two. Sometimes I'd go with her, and she'd read the book.

[Sam Fragoso]

So did you feel like you had to break their heart in order to find your own way?

[Terry Gross]

I didn't feel like I had to break their heart. I just felt that I had to, at that point, disobey them. And it wasn't even my idea to do this. I mean, to go cross country was my boyfriend's idea. I was really, in a lot of ways, looking forward to, like, settling in in this, like, student housing complex of garden apartments, not a dormitory. And, you know, we'd be living together next door to other of our friends. And that had been nice to just, you know, kind of nest a little bit. But I felt like, well, it'll be an adventure. And I did need to break away.

[Sam Fragoso]

Was there an underlying mission?

[Terry Gross]

The destination was California.

[Sam Fragoso]

That was the destination. Was it all inspired by Dennis Hopper and Easy Rider?

[Terry Gross]

Oh, zero percent. It's not like I didn't like the film, but I wasn't seeing myself in that context at all. Okay, I'll paraphrase Joyce Johnson here. She was Jack Kerouac's girlfriend for a while and later became an editor and writer, a book editor and writer. And in her memoir, it was called Minor Characters, and it was about seeing the men, you know, Kerouac and Ginsburg and all those guys, from the perspective of the girlfriend, the person on the margin. And she said, like, for men, the adventure was, you know, going to Mexico, driving cross country. For women, it was being the girlfriend of the guy who did that that was the adventure. But I didn't see myself quite that way. But I did see myself as, like, this isn't really me. I'm more of a homebody.

[Sam Fragoso]

It's a huge decision to make for something that's not you.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. This is the position I felt in, like, who am I gonna choose between my boyfriend or my parents?

[Sam Fragoso]

Okay.

[Terry Gross]

And I'm not sure. It occurred to me that I could make up my own mind.

[Sam Fragoso]

You didn't think there was a third option?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, I didn't think, like, what do I really want? Screw what they want. What do I want? You know? So I really. I'm not proud to say that.

[Sam Fragoso]

Well, what Are you not proud to say that?

[Terry Gross]

I wasn't thinking for myself and making the decision. I was thinking, like, which of these two sides am I gonna choose? As opposed to what do I really want in my life? Do I really wanna do that? I was enjoying college.

[Sam Fragoso]

It seems to me that you're. It sounds like you're blaming yourself a little bit, like it's some kind of personal failure that you didn't know that there was a third option.

[Terry Gross]

I think I wasn't quite a feminist yet, and I wasn't quite rewriting the rules of the game in my mind and thinking about what does equality mean? What does independent mean? What do I really want out of life? It was after that trip that I really started reading a lot of feminist literature and going to a consciousness raising group and all of that.

[Sam Fragoso]

Speaking of trips, when you took lsd, you brought a pen and paper to accompany you on this trip. And you said that I had a subject in mind.

[Terry Gross]

Did I say I had a subject in mind?

[Sam Fragoso]

You said I'm going to have a subject. What was the subject?

[Terry Gross]

The trip?

[Sam Fragoso]

The trip itself.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. I think I thought I'd write about that.

[Sam Fragoso]

Okay. And you thought that would open up your writerly doors of perception and did it?

[Terry Gross]

Well, it opened up my perception for sure, but the whole idea of writing about it seemed absurd. Cause the whole idea to me of the experience was the experience. Because when you're writing, you're standing apart from the experience and describing it as opposed to fully experiencing it. And to me, this is about like, that's ridiculous. Get rid of the pen and paper. Just experience this, live this.

[Sam Fragoso]

Where were you when you did it?

[Terry Gross]

Central Park.

[Sam Fragoso]

Oh, my God.

[Terry Gross]

Not for the whole time.

[Sam Fragoso]

Right. You were walking around, I assume.

[Terry Gross]

Sitting, walking, riding. No, just kidding.

[Sam Fragoso]

My last question about this period. You went to Woodstock?

[Terry Gross]

Oh, yes.

[Sam Fragoso]

You seem exasperated, me bringing this up.

[Terry Gross]

No, no, no. It was a mixed experience.

[Sam Fragoso]

How come?

[Terry Gross]

Did you ever see the movie Weekend? The Godard movie, Weeknd?

[Sam Fragoso]

Yes, I have.

[Terry Gross]

It reminded me of a scene from Weeknd, a kind of nightmare scene. And then when we got there, it was just like. I was so crowded and having to use those really filthy Johnny on the spots. It was so unpleasant.

[Sam Fragoso]

Is that a porta Potty?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, like a Porta potty.

[Sam Fragoso]

They're called Johnny on the spots.

[Terry Gross]

Well, some of them are.

[Sam Fragoso]

It sounds like a Becca John. Becca John could have been playing Woodstock.

[Terry Gross]

Yes.

[Sam Fragoso]

Yes, go ahead.

[Terry Gross]

You know, I enjoyed the music and I was glad I went. It was really. It was. It was an exciting experience.

[Sam Fragoso]

Is There a performance that you still. When you think back on the time, you go, God, that was amazing.

[Terry Gross]

I was there because I've seen the movie. I'm sometimes not sure who I saw and who I saw in the movie.

[Sam Fragoso]

Yes, of course.

[Terry Gross]

But I think Sly Stone. I think I really saw him.

[Sam Fragoso]

That's amazing. By the end of the trip. You once told Philadelphia magazine back in 1992 that you felt very much like a voyeur. I felt like everybody had a life and I didn't.

[Terry Gross]

This was nice, traveling cross country.

[Sam Fragoso]

Right. What did you mean by that?

[Terry Gross]

Along the way, but especially in California, we were mostly crashing in people's houses. And everybody had a thing that they were doing, like they were an artist or they were devoted to something, gardening, or they had a passion.

[Sam Fragoso]

Single minded.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. And they had a passion that they did well and that gave their life, like, meaning and purpose.

[Sam Fragoso]

The way you sort of were in high school as a lyricist.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. And just as a student, you know, and having friends and all of that. And I didn't feel like I had that, especially since I'd already decided I wasn't a writer. So seeing all these people, like, I wanted that in my life so badly.

[Sam Fragoso]

But you didn't have it then.

[Terry Gross]

No.

[Sam Fragoso]

And it's not until you come back home, you finish college, and you're working a not so interesting job typing out faculty policy menu.

[Terry Gross]

You could call it not interesting. No qualifier necessary.

[Sam Fragoso]

I actually have a not so interesting explanation as to why I said not so interesting. And I won't share it here.

[Terry Gross]

No, share it because you do so much research.

[Sam Fragoso]

No, no, no. Well, yes, yes, yes. It's because you said everything interesting was happening outside the classroom. It was the protests, it was the music, it was the movies. The movies, everything. And so the readings in my framing, I had the not so interesting in reference to. This is why it's not so interesting.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, I get it.

[Sam Fragoso]

See, everything was. I don't know if you know this, Terry. In interviews, we like to stack things up together.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, absolutely. Definitely. Definitely. And I edit things in my mind as I'm doing the inner. Do you do that?

[Sam Fragoso]

Oh, my gosh. Constantly. I've been editing this whole time.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, okay. It's distracting, but you gotta do it.

[Sam Fragoso]

It's very annoying, but you have to. Why? Why can't I just be here with you?

[Terry Gross]

Well, you are here with me. You're very much in the moment. I'm trying, but there's a part of your brain, always, that's editing, and it Needs to. Because, say, you wanna edit out what we just said.

[Sam Fragoso]

I think now that we're talking about editing in this kind of metatextual way, I think we may keep it in.

[Terry Gross]

Well, that's the thing. So you'd have to edit out what I'm saying right now. If you edited out the thing before, which is why you have to edit. Like, you have to decide right now, like, do I think I'm gonna leave that in or not?

[Sam Fragoso]

I'm gonna leave it in.

[Terry Gross]

Okay.

[Sam Fragoso]

Because it's a teachable moment. It is between, I think, the best to ever do it and someone who's learned a great deal from that person.

[Terry Gross]

I appreciate that.

[Sam Fragoso]

So tell me, at your terribly boring job writing faculty policy manuals for Buffalo State College.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

Was it on the job while you were listening to the radio. That you first discovered the power of the medium?

[Terry Gross]

That was the good part of the job. There were two good parts of the job. One was the donut in the morning that they had a box of donuts. I was eating that back then. But the really, really good part was listening to wbfo, which was this extraordinary NPR affiliate on the campus. It was like there were maybe five paid people and maybe 100 volunteers. The show I used to listen to in the afternoon was called this Is Radio. And that was the show that Fresh Air was initially modeled on. And I loved all the music that Wally Gaevsky, who was hosting at the time, played. Cause it was a mix of jazz and blues and rock and folk. And it was just great. And I also realized, like, when you're doing something that isn't really engaging your mind. How wonderful it is to have something to listen to that your eyes aren't required for, but you can feed yourself on it. It keeps you emotionally and mentally fed. So the way I actually got into radio was not by listening. Because I never dreamed that I could do that. But at this point, I was kind of fishing around to, like, what am I gonna do next? I still don't have the passion, the work kind of passion.

[Sam Fragoso]

You wanted to be one of those people you met on your road trip.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. Like, to have the passion that they had. And coincidentally, one of the women who I live with. Cause we were living in a group situation, couple, single person. And she was gonna be on the feminist show on wbfo, the station that I was listening to. So she's gonna be on the feminist show. So all the women in our house kind of gathered around the radio to listen. And she really surprised us. She came out on the show, which Wouldn't have been a big deal. But she hadn't told us yet her roommates. So when she came home, we had a long talk, and she said that her girlfriend was gonna move from the feminist show to the lesbian feminist show. And suddenly there was an opening on the feminist show. And I'm not the kind of person who. At least back then, I wasn't the kind of person who would go and say, hey, can I work on your show? I have no experience. I've never done this. I don't know anything, but I'd love to work on the show. But now that there was an opening, and of course, there was no money being paid, so they could only get volunteers. I had my roommate's name and I had a recommendation. She gave me the number of somebody to call, and they said, well, why don't you come and do an audition? And I did.

[Sam Fragoso]

Why do you think your roommate was more inclined to come out on the air than in the comfort of the apartment you share together?

[Terry Gross]

Yes, I've asked myself that. And I think perhaps for her it was kind of like sharing something that's almost like a little bit of a secret with the person next to you on the airplane because you know you're not going to see them again and you don't know who they are. They don't know who you are. I think it might have not occurred to her that we'd all be listening, that this really was a very public thing. So that's my only guess. I don't know. Maybe doing it publicly enabled her to do it. Personally, I can't read her mind, so I don't really know. And I never asked her, but I'm so grateful to her. I mean, if that hadn't happened, who knows what I would be doing now? It would probably not be radio.

[Sam Fragoso]

That seemed like one of those moments that change your course.

[Terry Gross]

Serendipity.

[Sam Fragoso]

As you begin working in radio and then come to Philadelphia to work on fresh air, did something about the fact that she did share it on the air and not in the apartment inform the way you thought about the power of the medium? Like, oh, this can be a space in which people share things that they do not share in their day to day?

[Terry Gross]

Yes. Mm. I speculated about the reason why, but I'll never really know. Tom Boswell, who was or is still a sports writer, once said that he thought that sometimes people felt more comfortable talking to, like, a professional. Do you know what I mean? And so, like, if you're talking to an interviewer, like, they're a professional, not in the way that a psychologist or a psychiatrist is, but you feel comfortable placing yourself in their hands. I don't know if that's true because I think a lot of interviewers are, especially in part of the personality press, are very prying and that people don't trust themselves and build big shields around themselves.

[Sam Fragoso]

After the break, more from Terry Gross.

[Terry Gross]

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[Narrator/Host]

The holidays have arrived at the Home.

[Terry Gross]

Depot and we're here to help bring.

[Sam Fragoso]

The excitement we with decor for every.

[Terry Gross]

Part of your home.

[Narrator/Host]

Check out our wide assortment of easy to assemble pre lit trees so you can spend less time setting up and more time celebrating. And bring your holiday spirit outdoors with unique decor like one of our Santa inflatables. Whatever your style, find the right pieces at the right prices this holiday season.

[Sam Fragoso]

At the Home Depot. Did you feel like a professional when you started your show?

[Terry Gross]

Hell no, I wasn't. Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing. You know what I did at first? I was used to writing term papers. My first two shows was like Women in the Blues. And my other first show was about women's clothes. Like why were there bras and girdles, like restrictive undergarments, long trains on skirts and stuff. And so I didn't know anybody who knew about that stuff. So I went to the library and did research and read my paper. It was like the worst radio you can imagine.

[Sam Fragoso]

We actually have a clip from that. Do you want to put it in here? I'm kidding. There's no clip.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, thank God. You terrified me.

[Sam Fragoso]

I appreciate that. You think I could find that one?

[Terry Gross]

Well, you do so much research. If anybody could, you would.

[Sam Fragoso]

In your Proust questionnaire, yes. You wrote who would I be? Where would I be without the year of 1978? What happened in 1978?

[Terry Gross]

Take it chronologically. Danny Miller, our executive producer, who was a senior at Temple University, became an intern on Fresh air. I had been doing the show myself three hours a day, five days a week. It was still a local show. And when Danny came, suddenly the show was it was fun. You know, I had like a Partner. And we shared very similar taste in music, in movies and comedy. So instead of this, like enormous lift every day, suddenly it was fun. And he booked guests and he lived just a couple of blocks away. So I remember once there was like a blizzard and he just ran and got some comedy records and brought them over because no one was going to get to the station to be a guest. It was good. And then the second thing that happened was that I had been told one of my good friends worked at the campus record store on the Penn campus, which is just a few blocks away from the radio station. And I knew from my friend that Francis had a huge record collection, including a lot of out of print records. So I had dinner with Francis, talked about the possibility of him doing a feature. He did an audition tape. It was incredibly well written. I wasn't expecting that. And he became a contributor to the show. And then we started seeing each other, and that's how our relationship began. Then Bill Seymring came, and Bill was basically the creator of All Things Considered.

[Sam Fragoso]

He was like the show that you used to host.

[Terry Gross]

Yes, exactly. The show that I used to host in David Mamet's mind, just to be clear. That was all in David Mamet's mind. So, yes. So Bill Semering was, I think, the first vice president for programming at npr. And he'd also been a former general manager at WBFO in Buffalo. So he became the station manager in Philly. And he is just like such a wonderful person and such an ear for radio and so creative in his thinking about radio. So those were three things. And it's because of Bill that we became a national show. He told NPR we were worthy.

[Sam Fragoso]

Did you first fall in love with Francis, or did you first fall in love with Francis? Writing?

[Terry Gross]

It's hard to say because I already liked Francis. I wouldn't say I'd fallen in love with him yet. But his writing amazed me, and his writing is who he was, so.

[Sam Fragoso]

Well, how do you mean?

[Terry Gross]

That was his passion. And we were talking about having a passion. He wasn't really writing much at the time.

[Sam Fragoso]

He was working at the listening booth.

[Terry Gross]

Yes. And that was a record store. But he was listening to music constantly. It's hard to describe music. He could really do it. Plus he knew all of the history behind it. And I did encourage him to write. After that, he started writing for Cadence magazine, in which you don't really get paid, but you get a platform. And he might have just started doing that himself, but I encouraged him to write and he started writing for Them. And then he started writing for the Enquirer, freelance. But he started developing a portfolio and really learning how to write a review for a newspaper.

[Sam Fragoso]

Thinking about the two of you living these parallel lives together, him becoming a writer, you working tirelessly to make this show. Because as I said earlier, we're talking around the 50th anniversary. There's over 15,000 interviews, and I thought we could talk about some of them together.

[Terry Gross]

Great.

[Sam Fragoso]

So with the help of Bill Siemering, the show became national.

[Terry Gross]

In 1985, it was weekly national, and in 87, it became daily national.

[Sam Fragoso]

Right. The first clip I want to play is from 1986, where you're talking to author Kurt Vonnegut about writing and censorship. At the time, some of his catalog, including Slaughterhouse Five, was being taken out of schools across the country. And here you're asking him about what sections of his books have created so much unrest in certain pockets of America.

[Terry Gross]

Can you describe some of the passages in your book that. Passages that are responsible for them being banned?

[Sam Fragoso]

No.

[John Updike (clip)]

And neither can the book banners, as they customarily haven't read them. And these are nice people, usually are not very well educated. They have kids, they want to help the community in some way. They run for the school committee. And so suddenly, for the first time in their lives, they are dealing with books since high school or whatever. And so they are over their heads. But there are organizations which will give them lists of bad books which they don't even have to read. Are these books on your shelves? I think what's new is not the censorship, but the opposition to censorship. I think for 200 years, people have been perfectly free to censor school libraries, public libraries. Nobody's opposed them. And what is new is that suddenly they're being opposed.

[Sam Fragoso]

The eerie timeliness of that, yes. The cyclical nature of his words in that battle around censorship. When he left that interview, a producer at the time said that he walked out and he said, wow, she's really amazing. That's one of the best interviews I've ever done.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, I don't remember that at all.

[Sam Fragoso]

Well, no, it wasn't told to you. It was told to a colleague. But it strikes me as like, wow, that the moment the show went national, there were already people seeing and hearing the kinds of interviews you were doing and the kinds of work that you were trying to make. I'm curious, how did you and your ep, Danny Miller, how are you reimagining the show when it went to four times a week, five times a week?

[Terry Gross]

Well, we Needed to get on to stations because if you're not being carried, you're not gonna last. You need a certain amount of stations to carry you. So we had to come up with a format that was format friendly for stations. So instead of being like long form interviews, like an hour long, often what we did, very often what we did, we divided the show into segments so that stations could cut away and have IDs and weather updates at regularly scheduled times. And so the format was the first half hour would be one interview, then there'd be a seven minute music review, an 11 minute interview that was highly edited and that would be long distance. And then a four minute book, movie or music review. And we got some hate mail from Philly thinking like you sold out to the suits, you know, Cause like, where's the fresh air that I knew that was like more long form. Now it's so like chopped up. We got one letter saying spring arrived and fresh air died. Cause we premiered nationally daily on May.

[Sam Fragoso]

11 and it's good you're still holding onto that.

[Terry Gross]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

That piece of mail.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, yeah. In my mind, did you like the.

[Sam Fragoso]

Change of direction the show was going in?

[Terry Gross]

I didn't like the format when the first half hour was live, as it was for the first few months that we went national. Cause I just saw every second ticking away and thinking that answer was really long. I've been robbed of like four minutes and I'm not going to be able to get in the question I wanted to ask even more. And instead of radiating some sense of calm, I think I was just getting more and more anxious. Like don't you know the time that you just wasted? You know, this is in real time.

[Sam Fragoso]

I guess what I'm trying to get at is there were plenty of interview shows in the mid-80s and it was becoming an emergent form and a very popular form. But what did you want to do in that format that you felt like others were not doing?

[Terry Gross]

I don't think I thought about it that way. I thought, I'm just going to do the best I can and tell me.

[Sam Fragoso]

What the best you can look like.

[Terry Gross]

Well, my approach to interviewing tends to be when it's like in the arts of any sort, pop culture music, to try to find the connection between somebody's life and their sensibility. Like, you know, some people are born with a gift, but the gift is shaped by their upbringing, their parents, the world around them. You know, if they were poor, if they were rich, if they were sick, if they were well and that shapes the stories that you tell. It shapes the things that you were exposed to, and your gift kind of forms around that. So what created the person whose work we love and who is that person, do you think?

[Sam Fragoso]

One of the reasons you're especially attuned to. To doing the kinds of interviews that you do is because you were an English major.

[Terry Gross]

I think that is very connected in two ways. I always loved reading and books. So, you know, talking to authors was a joy. I mean, like, I don't have to join a book club. I get to talk to the writer. That's the thing I liked about English class, is that you got to talk to people who had just read the book onto a teacher who'd probably, like, taught it a hundred times. But I think as an English major, you learn to read between the lines. You learn what makes a good sentence, even if you can't write one yourself. You learn a lot about language and what makes something interesting. There's a boring way and an interesting way to tell a story, and you learn the difference. You get exposed to new words. I also always love movies and music. So finding out who the people were, how that was created, all that. I loved it.

[Sam Fragoso]

One of the writers who did it very well and who came on your show very often was John Updike.

[Terry Gross]

Yes.

[Sam Fragoso]

And I want to play a clip from the first time you had him on in 1987, I believe it was.

[Terry Gross]

A writer's job is to, by way of fiction, somehow describe the way we live. And to me, this seems an important.

[John Updike (clip)]

Task, very worth doing.

[Terry Gross]

And I think also to the reading.

[John Updike (clip)]

Public, it seems, even though they might.

[Terry Gross]

Not articulate it, it seems to them.

[John Updike (clip)]

Something worth doing also, in a way.

[Terry Gross]

What you are doing is you're giving.

[John Updike (clip)]

Pascal said this somewhere.

[Terry Gross]

You're giving back people themselves. You are.

[John Updike (clip)]

By describing as best you can, the.

[Terry Gross]

Fantasies of your own life, you are showing other people what their lives are like. And in a way, you are giving people life.

[Sam Fragoso]

You are clarifying their life for them.

[John Updike (clip)]

So this is not an insignificant task, is it?

[Terry Gross]

No, it's a great way of looking at it, too. Well said. John Opdyke.

[Sam Fragoso]

He spoke in paragraphs.

[Terry Gross]

He did. He literally spoke in paragraphs.

[Sam Fragoso]

He spoke as he wrote.

[Terry Gross]

That's exactly right. I loved his writing. Oh, well, I love his writing. I don't have to put it. He's not here anymore, but his books are. I love his writing, the way he's.

[Sam Fragoso]

Describing, the utility of writing, the job.

[Terry Gross]

Of the writer, clarifying, giving people their lives.

[Sam Fragoso]

Do you see the Function of fresh air in similar terms only in the.

[Terry Gross]

Sense that I think you can find yourself in other people's stories, true stories, as well as in their art. It can be very affirming to hear somebody's story and say, like, I'm not the only person in the world who felt this. Or, like, I've always felt it. I couldn't express it, but that person put it perfectly, which is often how I felt about Updike and his writing.

[Sam Fragoso]

Do you still get that from interviews for yourself?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. My life is not perfectly clarified. And, you know, my life keeps changing. As you go through different stages of your life, your needs, your body, your interests, your future, your present, they all keep changing. And there's different things you want to read at different stages of your life that you find, you know, sustaining in some way.

[Sam Fragoso]

You said the. So many things here.

[Terry Gross]

No, but it's interesting. I'm seeing myself reflected in you. What I mean by. I don't mean. I don't mean you're borrowing from me. I mean, like, sometimes in the middle of an interview, I even say this to my guests. Sometimes I say to them, just as you just did to me, just give me a minute. I don't know what I want to ask you yet. I just need to think about what.

[Sam Fragoso]

Direction I want to head in on making the show. You've said in the past it's like you're slowly being changed every day by doing this job. And as we talk about the highlights of the show, I want to talk about some of the moments where you had your own David Mamet walkouts. Yes, I mentioned Bill O'Reilly earlier, Lou Reed, Faye Dunaway. But there's one in 1999 that has really stayed with me, and it was with Monica Lewinsky. And at the beginning of the episode, you said I had a really ambivalent reaction when asked whether I should do the interview.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, we were getting called by the publicist.

[Sam Fragoso]

Yes. And you said in asking about her relationship with former President Clinton, would I be a good journalist or a voyeur? And there's that word voyeur again.

[Terry Gross]

But in this case, it was literally about sex.

[Sam Fragoso]

Yes, in this case it was. And there's a section before she walks out that I thought we could hear together.

[Terry Gross]

Sure. Monica Lewinsky is my guest, and as you know, she has a new book called Monica's Story. Let's talk a little bit about what you believe the relationship with President Clinton was about. You've described the president as your sexual soulmate, and yet he had Told you that he had had hundreds of affairs before he was 40. But after he was 40, he'd made a concerted effort to be faithful. Then he confessed to you that he kept a record of the days he didn't cheat on his wife. So when you hear something like that from someone, what delusions can you have about the specialness of your relationship?

[Monica Lewinsky (clip)]

Well, I think, first, let me just correct. Because only in fairness to him, that he said he. I mean, my recollection of what he had said was that he had kept a record of the days he had been good. And so I think to go a step further and say that his being good was necessarily days that he didn't cheat on his wife is kind of a jump that's a little bit too much to make. And it's not really fair to him or to Mrs. Clinton. And.

[Terry Gross]

I don't.

[Monica Lewinsky (clip)]

I think I felt that also at the time when he sort of said hundreds of affairs that I didn't necessarily think that was literal, that there were 100 other women. But I don't know. I think for me, that it was. It was understanding and it was seeing that we had some sort of a connection. And the connection started. It was a physical attraction. There was. There was an attraction there. And it developed into a lot of other things that come from being intimate with someone, not just physically, but emotionally.

[Terry Gross]

You describe in the book that the first time you engaged in oral sex. He talked with a congressman on the phone about Bosnia. And at the same time, while that's happening, you're thinking, we clicked at an incredible level. And, you know, reading that, I just couldn't help but wonder how he could be on the phone while this is happening and you're thinking about how incredibly well you're clicking. I.

[Monica Lewinsky (clip)]

Certainly am not going to go through and reenact for you verbally what was going on and what my feelings and emotions were at the time. I think you just have to accept at face value that that's how I was feeling and that that's what was going on for me.

[Sam Fragoso]

It's an interesting piece of tape.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

How did you feel listening to it?

[Terry Gross]

I have very mixed feelings about having done it. I had mixed feelings before the interview, and I had mixed feelings after the interview. And I wrote at the end of the. Because she walked out. She walked out after I asked a more explicit question, which was after the oral sex question. That's when she walked out, saying that the questions were too intimate. They were. This is not a question I don't usually ask. People about having oral sex with somebody. But it was in her book. And reading her book, I felt like, how can I not ask about this? And I don't know if her book was ghostwritten. And I don't know when a book is ghostwritten. I'm never really sure how carefully the author, the subject, has actually read it.

[Sam Fragoso]

You had this problem with Nancy Reagan.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, but I felt like I had to ask. I didn't feel good about it. But at the same time, I was told afterwards that she was led to believe that the interview would be about recent trips she had taken and about writing the book and all that. Not really anything so specific about the affair with Clinton. And she ended her tour after this interview. She didn't just walk out on me. Like, that was the end of the tour.

[Sam Fragoso]

You put an end to it?

[Terry Gross]

Well, yeah. It's not what I wanted to do. I didn't want to hurt her. When the interview was over and I later wrote the back announce to the interview, I said she wasn't comfortable with the question. I wasn't comfortable asking it. And this seemed like her walking out seemed like a fitting end to an interview in which the interviewee was uncomfortable and so was the interviewer.

[Sam Fragoso]

Do you think you heard her?

[Terry Gross]

I know I did, and I'm really sorry about it. I've never apologized to her in person, but I'll stand by the fact that I asked the question, like, in that moment. I will stand by having asked her that, but trying to imagine what she was going through at the time. And like, so why did she even write a book? I imagine she wrote the book because there was probably a lot of legal fees. She probably got a really nice contract. Why did she go on a tour and be interviewed? That was probably part of the contract that she'd have to sell the book.

[Sam Fragoso]

Right.

[Terry Gross]

I can't imagine what it was like to go through what she went through, you know? And now I think she's, like, really managed to turn the worst thing that happened in her life into something that's really, like, productive and useful for other people trying to help women who have been trolled. Cause, like, she. There was no such thing as trolling yet. There wasn't an Internet. But she was really just dragged through the mud in every way imaginable. Whatever level of responsibility one thinks she should take for what happened, it's still. I can't think of anything more horrible experiencing what she did in the aftermath.

[Sam Fragoso]

I'll tell you that I had not heard that tape until preparing for this episode.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

And.

[Sam Fragoso]

And two things stood out to me. One, the show, as you've said many times, reflects culture. Doesn't create culture, it reflects culture. I think what that also means is it also reflects the cultural and moral values of the moment. And I think at that time, that interview was very much in line with how she was interviewed in other places. But it struck me as like, given what we have gone through in the intervening 26 years, would you have done that interview like that now?

[Terry Gross]

I'm not sure I would have done the interview, and I wasn't sure I should have done it then. But reading the book, it seems so delusional to me. But that's through the lens of who I am. And she was young and obviously didn't seem delusional to her then. I felt like I had to ask it. It's not the only thing I asked. And I had other things I would have asked, but it really stood out to me.

[Sam Fragoso]

I think maybe what I'm trying to get at is when I hear that tape, it doesn't sound like the woman who started her radio program on Woman Power.

[Terry Gross]

Right. But at the same time, like I said, the culture. Like you said, the culture was different then. And I felt a responsibility as a journalist to address something in the book. Cause everything had already happened, and she's still insisting at that point that there were sexual soulmates and that they clicked at an incredible level. Look at how she's evolved. So I think we were both living in a different time. I don't think she would have written that if she was writing it today. The whole language was different. I'm not saying that to excuse myself, but like I said, as a journalist, I'm willing to still justify that if she was able to write that, that I'm able to ask about it.

[Sam Fragoso]

I think actually hearing that and hearing you talk about it is a good reminder to everyone how much not only we change, but the culture changes. And how two people with pretty good intentions, you know, can hear and mishear and not reach each other. It's good. And it's okay that people change.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, it's definitely good that people change.

[Sam Fragoso]

And we ought to be tolerant of that.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, yeah. You mean in terms of cancellation?

[Sam Fragoso]

I think so. I mean, the amount of guests you've had of people whose careers were basically asked to ignore. Now, you had Louis on many times. Louis C K came on.

[Terry Gross]

Yes. And I loved our interviews. I felt so bad that this person who I'd come to admire and enjoy so much had done something so thoughtless.

[Sam Fragoso]

And harmful in the case of Louis, or even Monica, for that matter. How do you think about the limits of the autobiographical interview?

[Terry Gross]

Oh, I think there are limits. That's what I was trying to get at earlier. I think that autobiographical interviews are really helpful. We see ourselves in them. We learn about people who aren't like ourselves, and it opens up our understanding of different cultures or countries or religions, whatever. But at the same time, I think that there's a lot that's left out. There's a lot of fiction. The example I always like to use is in addition to Louis C.K. now, I once had, like years ago, probably in the late 80s, a poet who seemed like a really sensitive poet to me and who seemed, like, nervous being on the air. I was trying to be, like, really gentle with him because I don't think he was used to being interviewed that much. And I later found out that he was accused of sexual harassment of his students. And I don't know if it was, like, assault or harassment. The language was, like, less precise then. But I felt really bad. And then he came out with a book that was. I forgot what the title was, but it was all about his sexual obsession. And I thought, like, oh, I thought I knew something about this guy. I knew nothing. And that there's so much you do not know about the person you're interviewing, no matter how forthcoming they may seem. You don't know what's happening underneath all that. And I don't delude myself about that.

[Sam Fragoso]

No matter how much research you do.

[Terry Gross]

It's because you know if you're hiding something, you're hiding it from everybody else who's interviewing you, too.

[Sam Fragoso]

Oftentimes, those people are hiding it from themselves even.

[Terry Gross]

Well, that's true, too. Yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

When people have asked you, what is your goal in an interview? What do you want to get at? You said, I want to talk to people about the time they were struck by lightning, when their lives are irrevocably changed. You mentioned this earlier about needing different books for different times and how you change and how you have changed, having done this show and committed so much of your life to making this show. And in looking through your body of work, there's one episode, one conversation that immediately comes to mind when I read that quote, and that's with the writer Joan Didion. You spoke with her in 2006 around the release of her book, the Year of Magical Thinking, which was published shortly after her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunn, passed away. Can we play a clip from that?

[Terry Gross]

Oh, sure. I want to Quote, something you write in your memoir, the Year of Magical Thinking. You write, marriage is memory. Marriage is time. Marriage is not only time. It is also, paradoxically, the denial of time. For 40 years, I saw myself through John's eyes. I did not age. This year, for the first time Since I was 29, I saw myself through the eyes of others. This year, for the first time Since I was 29, I realized that my image of myself was of someone significantly younger. Right. As writers, you both worked at home and you were with each other just about all the time. Did you have a sense of who you were outside of the marriage, who you were as a single Joan Didion, as opposed to a Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunn as a unit? Not really, no. The family was my unit, was kind of the way I. That was actually the way I wanted it. So, no. So it was kind of necessary to find my. You know, to refine myself. I hadn't particularly liked being single. When you were younger, you mean, when I was younger. Were there parts of yourself that you kind of relied on him to do? I mean, you know what I mean? All parts. I mean. I mean, people often said that he finished sentences for me. Well, he did, which meant that I. I mean, I just relied on him. He was between me and the world. He not only answered the telephone, he finished my sentences. He was. He was. He was the baffle between me and the world at large. She was really good. And then in the middle of the episode, one of our producers came, and with something from the wire service that's saying that she just won the National Book Award. So I broke the news to her.

[Sam Fragoso]

I heard. Yeah, that was amazing. I hadn't listened to that episode before, and in discovering it, I, of course, could not help but think about you and the year you have had. Where does that tape land with you hearing yourself read those words from her incredible book?

[Terry Gross]

Well, I think her relationship with her husband was really different than mine. But I'll tell you, when I read her book, it was for the interview, because the book was just coming out, and I found the book impossible to put down and impossible to read. Impossible to put down because it's so well written and it's so emotional and impossible to read because it's so painful. And I just kept thinking, what if this happened to Francis? What if Francis suddenly died? I can't imagine anything worse. How do you endure that? But my experience and hers were really different. First of all, Frances was not my protection from the world. And answering the phone for me and all that.

[Sam Fragoso]

You're baffled.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. It was nothing like that at all. I mean, I was the person who drove. He didn't know how to drive. You know, there was all kinds of things where I was the one who had to do it. But he had a long illness. He was sick for, like, four and a half years.

[Sam Fragoso]

COPD and Parkinson's.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. And he had major surgery in 2020 that wasn't related to either of those things.

[Sam Fragoso]

In the pandemic.

[Terry Gross]

And then the pandemic when he was in a school nursing facility for rehab. After the hospitalization, I wasn't allowed in because they weren't allowing visitors in. And in the hospital, it was really scary, too. I was able to visit him, but there was no vaccine, There was no medication. There was no anything. For Covid, another real big difference between what Joan Didion experienced and what I experienced is that when her husband died, she kept all the clothing and everything. Cause the year of magical thinking is about like, he can't really be dead, so maybe he'll come back. So she was saving his clothes.

[Sam Fragoso]

If it stays there, then maybe he'll come out of the closet.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. And for me, it was like, I don't really need his clothes. He wasn't like a special dresser. Like, he didn't care that much about his clothes. I'm just gonna keep the ones that have some kind of meaning to me. Cause that he wore it so often that I see that robe and I see Francis. I see this shirt, and I see Francis. What I kept a lot of were his vinyl albums and his CDs. I sold a lot of them because we had a remote locker. We had a locker in the basement of where we lived. We had crates and crates on the floor.

[Sam Fragoso]

It was like an archive in there.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, we had more than your average record store did. It was like living in a combination of a used book and record store. It's kind of like there's a huge, long wall of just vinyl albums and other walls of CDs. And that's like. That's my shrine to Francis. Now I have his ashes, and his ashes are on one of the record shelves. So his ashes are in an urn, like a little wooden box surrounded by the music that he loved. And I can think of no better place. And it's also at eye level when I have my meals, so I can see him. He's surrounded by his music. It's all good. It's hard for me to talk about. I usually don't get very far.

[Sam Fragoso]

You've gotten Pretty far.

[Terry Gross]

You know, when you go through a long term illness with somebody and then you have a part time caregiver, and then you have full time caregiver, and then you have 24 hour caregivers, and then you're in and out of the hospital with that person and you see them just kind of slowly decline and then recover a little bit and then decline even more and never getting back to where you were before. It's a very painful thing to experience with someone.

[Sam Fragoso]

And through it all, you really kept working. Was that hard or was it in some ways helpful?

[Terry Gross]

It was helpful. It was helpful to me because I don't think I would have survived if I was just home the whole time. And I wanted to make sure that I maintained part of my life that was important to me. And we were very lucky. We had wonderful caregivers. And our daytime caregiver, who is now a very close friend of mine, he loves music and he loves movies and he loves television and keeps up with all of that. And so he and Francis would have, like great talks and Dev would, you know, he'd take him to the movies when there was something that, you know, Francis wanted to see. And either, you know, he'd be able to walk there with assistance or even if he was in a wheelchair. Our caregiver was like, very, very strong and would just like wheel him over the cobblestones to get to the movie theater. And Francis also liked to be alone. He really wanted to be alone a lot of the time. And so just being alone in his office, in our home was what he wanted. If I was there, it's not like we would be spending all day together, you know. So I think what was hard was that I had to work in the evenings to do more research.

[Sam Fragoso]

Remember in the beginning you said that with that Maurice Sendak tape, which we'll hear a little bit of at the end here, that you got to have the conversation about death with him that you didn't get to have with your parents. Were you able to have those?

[Terry Gross]

I'm gonna need a minute.

[Sam Fragoso]

I'm sorry. It's okay. No, it's okay.

[Terry Gross]

Does anyone in the control room have a tissue?

[Sam Fragoso]

I think actually I do.

[Terry Gross]

It's just. It's very soon for me.

[Sam Fragoso]

We can talk about something else if you want.

[Terry Gross]

There. The answer was I, I, I, I never really did quite have that conversation. I think it was very hard for Frances to talk emotionally about it.

[Sam Fragoso]

It's hard for most people.

[Terry Gross]

I know, I know.

[Sam Fragoso]

Even though it's something you often Ask.

[Terry Gross]

I know.

[Sam Fragoso]

And you're so good at asking about it.

[Terry Gross]

I tried.

[Sam Fragoso]

You tried with him?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. But, you know, there's a distance that you have with an interviewee where you can. You feel empowered to ask anything. And I always tell my guests, if I ask you anything too personal, let me know and I'll move on to something else. And when I'm asking something super personal that I think might be crossing a line, I'll say, this question is what I meant when I said if I ask you anything too personal, and you're not going to offend me if you tell me it's too personal, so I'll ask the question. Feel free not to ask it, not to answer it. But I'm more cautious when asking people who I'm really close to about things like that because, like, it's a different relationship.

[Sam Fragoso]

Yeah. I think about this all the time.

[Terry Gross]

Do you really? What are your thoughts?

[Sam Fragoso]

It's hard because part of doing this with you, I knew going in that we would have to talk about this. But the other part. Do you need your tissue? Yeah. I've heard you say over and over and over again that to be a sensitive interviewer, I have to be a lousy friend. I've heard you say that in interviews for 25 years.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

And so I'm thinking about what we ask the people in our lives versus what we ask of the people over the fiber optic cable or across the table.

[Terry Gross]

What I meant, though, was something different. What I meant was I don't have time. I didn't then have time for friends. And I didn't mean in terms of my relationship. I didn't mean in terms of the questions that I ask friends. I meant this solely as, like, I'm a lousy friend, because if you call me in the evening, I'm not going to be able to talk to you.

[Sam Fragoso]

But to the point, there are things that we're willing to ask people on tape, the important things that we sometimes don't get around to asking people in our lives.

[Terry Gross]

I think for me, the violation seems worse if it's somebody who I'm very close with.

[Sam Fragoso]

Tell me what you mean by that.

[Terry Gross]

Because usually if I'm asking a guest about the death of a husband, like I did with Joan Didion, it's because she's written about it. I'm not likely to ask somebody about death if it hasn't been a subject of their work or if I don't think that they can handle it. Ditto with sex. When I ask somebody about sex, it's because they've written about it. Like Monica Lewinsky.

[Sam Fragoso]

Or John Updike.

[Terry Gross]

Or John Updike. He was great about writing about it. Can I just quote you one line? So he said, what is the proper etiquette before having sex? Do you ask if the person needs to use the bathroom first, as if you were going on a long trip together? I just think that's so great.

[Sam Fragoso]

That's amazing. He was a horny man. Or at least the writing.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, yeah, the writing was. I'd have trouble with his relationships probably, but do you know what I mean? But in terms of his ability to describe things anyhow, it's not like I say to my parents when they're my parents were dying, like, I won't be offended if you don't answer this, so I'll ask the question and feel free not to answer it. It's a very professional, thoughtful. Right.

[Sam Fragoso]

This is the part in the hospital where if you don't like my questions about dying, this is the time to say, I don't like this.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. So I mean, I asked it very gently and backed off because I can intuit, I can to it what my parents are thinking. I can tell by the look on my husband's face what he's thinking and whether he really wants to talk about something. And I don't need to go any further if I see the. Not now.

[Sam Fragoso]

After one more break, the end of my conversation with Terry Gross.

[Terry Gross]

When did making plans get this complicated?

[Monica Lewinsky (clip)]

It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together.

[Terry Gross]

Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no.

[Monica Lewinsky (clip)]

One forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption.

[Terry Gross]

It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.com mutine adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. One who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they they do not exist. The new fragrance by Miu Miu defined by you this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart move Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm Is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[Sam Fragoso]

You mentioned this right at the beginning of this episode. Two and a half weeks removed. You got back in this office and you got to work and you made this piece about your late husband. And I re listened to it this morning and it's just. It's just fucking remarkable.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, thank you.

[Sam Fragoso]

And one of the things that stuck out to me is how you gave so much space to the words and descriptions of other people. You quoted from magazine after newspaper. And I was wondering if you did that. One, because you're a good journalist and two, because at that point you didn't have the words yet.

[Terry Gross]

I don't have the words. I mean, I'm not a great writer. I think I've made that clear. And also I'm biased. I mean, I fell in love with his writing before I fell in love with him or at the same time. And part of how I fell in love with him was his words. I don't mean sweet talking me. I mean, he just used words in conversation and on the page, like just so well. And loving writing as I do made me just have very deep feelings. And I had a lot of people come up to me and write to me afterwards saying, like, I had no idea of all the things that he'd accomplished and how highly regarded he was. Because the truth is, jazz has become a very niche kind of music now. And most people don't listen to jazz even more. Most people don't read jazz criticism, you.

[Sam Fragoso]

Know, our theme music. So to me, I know what you're.

[Terry Gross]

Saying and I like your theme music a lot.

[Sam Fragoso]

I just don't understand. Cause to me it's very important. I want to quote something he wrote.

[Terry Gross]

Yes.

[Sam Fragoso]

In the Atlantic, he wrote a piece about Johnny Cash. Someone who came on your show in the late 90s who didn't love doing interviews but said, boy, you're really good at your job. That's what he said to you. Do you remember that?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, I do. That's the kind of thing you keep in your mind.

[Sam Fragoso]

Your husband wrote about Johnny Cash. He was in his late 30s and already had plenty of mileage on him when he was discovered by television. Longer hair and the shadows and dents of middle age brought out the character in his face, making him almost handsome. The shadows and dents of middle age.

[Terry Gross]

I love that line so much. That's one of the things I read in my tribute to him. I Wish I could come up with something like that. I'm totally incapable of it. But you look at Johnny Cash's face and you know exactly what shadows and dents means.

[Sam Fragoso]

You know, I was thinking about the shadows and dents in relation to this third act of yours. After doing 50 years of fresh Air, there's been so much speculation about when and whether you would retire. Is that something you're interested in?

[Terry Gross]

Not now, no. You know, there's the saying that nobody ever on their deathbed says, oh, I wish I spent more time in the office. Well, I think if you're passionate about your work, which has been a kind of theme of the interview in a way, you know, of our interview, that it's not time in the office, it's doing something you're passionate about. Like work really gives my life a focus and meaning. I find my work very meaningful. And it's not like, ah, I'm gonna retire and golf, or I'm gonna retire and write the great American novel, which I just haven't had time to write. But I know, given the time, I've got it in me. My attitude about writing a book is like, never again. This book, which is a collection of my interviews with a kind of long opening essay. I had an excellent collaborator, Margaret Moose Pick, and she did a lot of the editing of the interviews. She did most of the editing of the interviews. And yet just like doing, like, rewriting intros and writing the opening essay, and then it was so time consuming, I can't begin to tell you. And that's with help.

[Sam Fragoso]

So this job that gives your life meaning, that has given it meaning for as long as it has for 50 years. We are living in a moment where $1.1 billion in funding for NPR and PBS and stations across the country have been eliminated. It was voted on and passed through the Senate in part because of Pennsylvania's own Dave McCormick, who voted in favor of this cut. The New York Times have called the cuts a time bomb for the public media system. As someone who has given as much of their time and life to this medium as just about anyone still doing it, how are you thinking about the future of public media?

[Terry Gross]

I don't know what to expect. I don't know whether there will be more corporate underwriting coming through or listener support. But I know that some stations will probably go under. I know some stations might have to not be NPR members anymore because you have to pay dues to become a member of NPR if you're a station, and those dues help support npr. And stations pay a fee to carry our show. I don't know what to expect. I think the. I think public radio will probably survive in some form. I think the form might really change. I don't know. I'm really not the right person to predict anything. I'm not good at that. And I don't know.

[Sam Fragoso]

I'm not concerned about predictions. I'm more focused on the fact that you say I have no plans of retirement. As someone who's going within the time bomb, as the New York Times called it, I want to stick it out and do this job that gives me meaning. How are you feeling day to day?

[Terry Gross]

Day to day, I just do my job. I don't think at the long term future of public media day to day, at least not in a consuming way. I think about it a lot and I don't know what the future will bring. I do know I'll just speak specifically about public radio right now. It has contributed so much to American culture and journalism. You know, there is still nothing in the audio space that's like All Things Considered or Morning Edition. Absolutely nothing. There's a zillion podcasts. None of them have reporters around the world. Maybe the BBC has a podcast, but there's nothing on the radio. Let me put it that way. Cause All Things Considered in Morning Edition aren't whole shows on the podcast, but there's nothing on radio like that. There's a lot of communities that are cut off culturally from a lot of what's happening. And they've, you know, a lot of those communities have really relied on public radio for their cultural news. And not everybody even knows how to do podcasts. You know, how to, how to access them. I meet a lot of people who don't know. So when I started in public media, when I started in public radio, it was like 1973 or four. All things considered was only two or three years old. No one knew what public radio was. My parents thought like, this is some kind of. This must be some kind of amateurish thing. Cause I've never heard of it. It's not going to be a serious career. You should find something else. But look at how it grew. Look at how many artists were connected to audiences through public radio shows. Look at how many shows it helped create. Like our show. We could never have gone national without a very major CPB fund. The show, World Cafe, same thing. It helped build WHYY with just a local grant that enabled us to create a newsroom when Bill Semering was here. So many podcasts are Inspired by public radio shows, this American Life serial long form interview shows, their outgrowths of public radio. And for years I felt like we have no competition. I don't mean our show, I mean like NPR shows, NPR stations. There's no how come someone in commercial media isn't trying to copy what we do? Cause it's so good and it has such a devoted audience. And now, God, there's so much competition. I feel like I've been just a couple of years away from the early fruits of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And here I am at the other end of it when there is no more of that funding. And I think it's really sad and really unfortunate. Bill Moyers said that some people confuse journalism with liberalism. And I think that that's part of what's going on here. That some people with power, including perhaps the President, see journalism that's fact based and they think it's liberal because they disagree with the facts.

[Sam Fragoso]

Congressman Scott Perry, who represents Pennsylvania's 10th district, says this exact thing. He says it's a no brainer to slash taxpayer funding of NPR and pbs. They are disinformation and propaganda outlets that only publish leftist talking points.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, that's simply, factually, totally untrue. If you listen to NPR News shows, they have on Democrats, they have on Republicans, they have on very conservative people, they have on arts of all kind, is just factually not true. And if having on people of different backgrounds, people who are black, Latino, queer, feminist, if that's a sign of wokeness, well, it's a sign of America. It's not a political position. It's a sign of representing human beings who are human beings and who live in our country and who have great contributions that they've made. As soon as it was safe to come out, we saw that so many of the artists that everybody loves are queer. And when the doors opened to black writers and filmmakers and directors, we realized there were so many talented filmmakers who just weren't given access. And we already knew that with music there was always black music being recorded. Artists weren't necessarily being paid properly for making it. They may have been exploited, but we still got to hear the music.

[Sam Fragoso]

Right?

[Terry Gross]

I don't say that in forgiveness of the exploitation. I just say that in recognition that that talent was recognized. So it's impossible to do an art show without what Scott Perry might think of as being woke up just by virtue of having on great artists who happen to be black or queer or Latino or feminist. And that's reflected in their work because people's lives are always reflected in their work.

[Sam Fragoso]

I think many people saw their lives reflected in the work of writer Maurice Sendak, and he came on your show many, many times. In celebrating 50 years of fresh air in the building, where it happened, where it continues to happen. I thought we could play a clip from your conversation with him in 2012.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

I have nothing but praise now, really, for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. I cry a lot because they die and I can't stop them. They leave me, and I love them more. But I have my young people here, four of them, who are studying, and they look at me as somebody who knows everything. Four kids. They only knew how little I know. But obviously I give off something that they trust because they're all intelligent. Oh, God, there are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die. But I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. Well, listen, I have to tell you something.

[Terry Gross]

Go ahead.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

You are the only person I have ever dealt with, in terms of being interviewed or talking to, who brings this out in me. There is something very unique and special in you, which I so trust. When I heard that you were going to interview me, you wanted to. I was really, really pleased.

[Terry Gross]

Well, I'm really glad we got the chance to speak, because when I heard you had a book coming out, I thought, what a good excuse to call it. Maurice and I can have a chat.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

Yes. That's what we always do, isn't it?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

It's what we've always done.

[Terry Gross]

It is.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

Thank God we're still around to do it.

[Terry Gross]

Yes.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

And almost certainly I'll go before you go, so I won't have to miss you.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, God, what a.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

And I don't know whether I'll do another book or not. I might. It doesn't matter. I'm a happy old man. But I will cry my way all the way to the grave.

[Terry Gross]

Well, I'm so glad you have a new book. I'm really glad we had a chance to take talk.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

I am, too.

[Terry Gross]

And I wish you all good things.

[Maurice Sendak (clip)]

I wish you all good things. Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.

[Terry Gross]

I need another tissue. So many times I play him back in my head saying, live your life. Live your life. Live your life. Like when I get caught up in a negative thought cycle, I just. I play that. My emotions have been very close to the surface since Francis died.

[Sam Fragoso]

Is that all right?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. I mean, they should be. I mean, I should Be feeling a lot. We lived our lives together for 47 years. It's okay.

[Sam Fragoso]

Why are you saying that to me?

[Terry Gross]

Because I feel like maybe you're uncomfortable that I'm tearing up.

[Sam Fragoso]

Oh, no, no. I'm just holding the space.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. I also want to reassure you that I'm okay.

[Sam Fragoso]

You don't have to reassure me anything. That's not what this is.

[Terry Gross]

Okay.

[Sam Fragoso]

Are you?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. I really am. I know there's still a wound, there's an absence, but I'm okay. I have a life. I have friends, I have work that I really treasure. I have people who I see every day at work who I really care deeply about. I enjoy seeing them. I enjoy being in their company. I enjoy relationships built around a common purpose. And I have that. I have that in a very profound way.

[Sam Fragoso]

When you hear that tape now, it has new meaning.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Sam Fragoso]

And what is that?

[Terry Gross]

I feel like I understand more what it's like to be in the position Maurice was in where he had been sick for a while. He'd been declining. He couldn't travel, which was why we spoke on the phone. And to know death is near and to, you know, just a fun, you know, he still found beauty in the world, and I love that he did. That's very meaningful to me. And I really hope that when I'm nearing death, if it doesn't come suddenly, like if I know I'm nearing it, I hope that music and movies or whatever still brings me, you know, pleasure and connection and meaning. Yeah, I know music still mattered to Francis.

[Sam Fragoso]

At the very end when he says, live your life. Live your life. Live your life as we go. How do you. How do you want to go about living the rest of it?

[Terry Gross]

I'm in a day by day right now. I mean, I know I'm not going to retire now.

[Sam Fragoso]

Give me a good day.

[Terry Gross]

A good day? Yeah, A good day like at work is when an interview goes well, or just a day when, you know, I'm at the point in my life where I'm not looking for the big exclamatory kind of pleasure. Do you know what I mean? I'm not planning on any great physical adventures. I was never a physical adventurer. I've always been a physical coward.

[Sam Fragoso]

Me too.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, really?

[Sam Fragoso]

Oh, 100%.

[Terry Gross]

And, you know, I'm not much of a traveler kind of a homebody, but to me, I just want inner equanimity, like inner contentment. And that could just be having dinner alone or having dinner with a friend. It could be talking to somebody in an Interview. It could be just working with the people I work with. It could be taking a walk by myself. It could be sitting and watching a movie. Do you know what I mean? But just to feel content and comfortable in my own body and in my mind. And that doesn't always happen. That's what I seek.

[Sam Fragoso]

And the positive value and negative thinking.

[Terry Gross]

Well, that I can turn off. I'd like to turn that off. But those times occur, you know? And that's when I say it like I'm okay, because I still have times like that, you know.

[Sam Fragoso]

What did your dad say about pleasure again?

[Terry Gross]

No one said that life is all about pleasure. And he's right, it isn't. But you shouldn't say that in a scolding way to somebody who's not exactly a hedonist. You know, if you look at me and look at my, you know, the life I've always led, I've always been, you know, on the introverted side.

[Sam Fragoso]

Studious.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, exactly. You'd never think like that woman. All she cares about is pleasure. And she doesn't work, she doesn't focus. You wouldn't be saying that about me.

[Sam Fragoso]

My last question for you is, for 50 years, people have listened to your interviews. They've read them in this book. And part of what happens is what Updike talked about, that they see their lives reflected back at them by hearing about other people's experiences. Do you feel that after 15,000 interviews, 50 years, that hearing other people's stories, trying to understand other people, has it helped you better understand yourself?

[Terry Gross]

I think so, yeah. In the sense that it's been helpful to me to hear people talk about things that I would be embarrassed to admit to myself. And I don't mean, like criminal, offensive things, but just like, thoughts and feelings that, you know, I tend to keep to myself. Cause I think it would reflect badly on me or, you know, be embarrassing in some way. And so it's helped me feel more comfortable within myself and also help me feel that there's value in sharing stories, even maybe mine.

[Sam Fragoso]

There's a lot of value in it.

[Terry Gross]

Well, I say that because I've been a very inhibited interviewee most of my life because I wanted to not only be invisible, but also be a bit of a blank slate. And I feel like I've been at this long enough that maybe I can say more about myself and say it comfortably. And thank you for asking such good questions and being such a sensitive interviewer. I admire your work a lot and felt very comfortable talking to you, even When I was in tears.

[Sam Fragoso]

You said, back in the day, why don't more people do the kind of interviews that we do at npr? And I assure you, and I know you know this, but I'll say it so we have it on the record, that there would not be one episode of Talk Easy if it weren't for you.

[Terry Gross]

Thank you, Sam. It means a lot to me. It means a lot to me because I admire your work a lot. I think you're really good.

[Sam Fragoso]

I learned from the best. Tara Gross. Thank you for, for all the time and everything in between.

[Terry Gross]

Thank you. Can I give you a hug? Yeah.

[Narrator/Host]

This conversation was originally broadcast on Talk Easy, Sam Fragoso's show. I've never gotten to record over such smooth horns before. Can I recommend two podcasts at the same time? Sam's show again, Talk Easy. I really like it. If you want to check out another episode, you could try his Seth Rogen interview, which I really enjoyed. And Fresh Air. Just listen to FRESH Air. I'm not going to send you a specific episode. It's Fresh air. Talk Easy is hosted by Sam Fragoso and is produced by Caroline Reebok. Talk Easy's executive producer is Janikza Bravo, editing by Matt Sasaki and Nick Zahn, mixing by Andrew Vistola and music by Dylan Peck. As for us, we will be back next week with a brand new episode of Search Engine. See you then.

[Sam Fragoso]

And Doug, here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds.

[Terry Gross]

With Liberty Mutual Mutual. Fascinating.

[Sam Fragoso]

It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.

[Narrator/Host]

Is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

[Sam Fragoso]

Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at libertymutual. Com.

[Terry Gross]

Liberty. Liberty, Liberty.

[Narrator/Host]

Liberty Savings vary underwritten by Liberty Mutual.

[Sam Fragoso]

Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.