Writer of
Studs Terkel biography started with a story in his head
Rick
Kogan – Chicago Tribune
It was a not-so-happy Halloween in 2008 when the
many thousands of his fans and followers heard that Studs Terkel had died. This
news was perhaps softened a bit by the fact that he was 96 years old and that
his life had been filled with activity: TV star, actor, radio host for nearly
half a century on WFMT, author of nearly 20 books (among them such best-sellers
as "Division Street America," "Working" and "The Good
War," winner of the Pulitzer Prize in
1985), energetic activist and civic symbol. He got it right when some years
before his death he crafted his own playful epitaph: "Curiosity did not
kill this cat."
On that 2008 Halloween, Alan Wieder was
driving his car along a road near the University of South Carolina, where he
had been a professor for nearly two decades. He was talking on his cellphone to
his girlfriend, Joanie Krug, who would later become his wife. He stopped
talking so that he could turn his full attention the car radio's delivery of
the news of Terkel's death. "And then I just drove to the
nearest place I could think of where I could get a pair of red socks,"
says Wieder, referring to one of the items that was — along with a red-checked
shirt, a loosened red knit tie, gray trousers and a blue blazer — part of the
familiar Terkelian wardrobe.
That sartorial style came to be after
Studs (it simply does not seem right to refer to him in any other way, not by
last name or by his birth name, which was Louis) spotted a man at a party
wearing a red-checked shirt and said he had to have one just like it. He always
had a frazzled and rumpled look, as if he might have been a racetrack tout. But
it's possible he could have looked even worse. As his wife Ida said, "I
have to take him out to the store to buy clothes. Otherwise, he would be
dressed in rags."
"Finally, I found a pair of red
socks in a sporting goods store," says Wieder.
He no longer has those socks but he has a
book, the first major biography of Studs since his death. (Previously there was
"Studs Terkel: A Life in Words" by Tony Parker published in 1996.)
Wieder's "Studs Terkel: Politics,
Culture, but Mostly Conversation" begins with these words: "This
project began in my head over twenty years ago. As a university oral historian,
it was Studs Terkel's books that made my work possible, credible in the
academic setting that swept further and further into the world of empirical
data. People's stories were not to be trusted, but Studs made them
legitimate."
It is a fine and immensely readable book
that hits all of the many stops in Studs' long career. It is the result of deep
and detailed research, incisive and insightful thinking and is based soundly on
"more than one hundred conversations with Studs' family members, friends,
colleagues, and other people whose lives he touched."
I was among those people, for not only
had I known Studs since I was born — he took my father, his good friend, out
for a celebratory drink that long ago night — but I had written a number of
stories about him over my newspaper years, including his obituary, which began
by noting that he "arrived here as a child from New York City and in
Chicago found not only a new name but a place that perfectly matched — in its
energy, its swagger, its charms, its heart — his own personality. They made a
perfect and enduring pair."
"At first some of the people I
approached were suspicious," says Wieder. "I was lectured a bit:
'Don't get Studs wrong,' more than one said. And others were skeptical."
One of the reasons was that Wieder was
far from Studs' inner circle, which numbered among it some people who were
contemplating writing books of their own about him. Wieder was a virtual stranger, having met
Studs only once. It was in 2003 when he was in Chicago for a conference at
which Studs was a featured speaker. He was introduced to him by Bill Ayers, the
local author and professor who was a friend of both Studs and Wieder. "We shook hands and I immediately
sensed that Studs was totally uninterested in talking to another
professor," says Wieder. "But when I mentioned that I had just
returned from South Africa, he brightened and we talked and talked." Actually, that conversation lasted only
10 minutes but it remained vivid in Wieder's mind.
In the wake of Studs' death Wieder was
wrapping up his book about a pair of South African activists. When his
"Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid" was finished,
he focused on Studs. As he writes, "I had been scripting Studs' story in
my head for many years." "After that initial skepticism, so
many people were willing to share their memories," says Wieder, who now
lives in Oregon. "They all helped me get to know Studs as a human
being." His tone is understandably flattering,
his admiration palpable. He ends his book with this appreciative assessment:
"He amazed us!"
There will surely be more books about
Studs. His own books still sell and his radio interviews live on in the
remarkable Studs Terkel Radio Archive. In a sense Studs fashioned his own
autobiography. Though famous for his skill in interviewing others, he also
wrote a number of books in which his voice is the most prominent. Among them I
think the best is 1986's "Chicago," a big title for a slender,
144-page book, which he described as a "rambling essay." But I find
it to more like a meditation, a thrilling trip into Studs' feelings for this
city with which he is so closely identified.
Wieder is proud of his own book, though
he wonders still, "Did I really get him?"
The preface is by Chicago poet-teacher
Kevin Coval, who calls the book "a tribute to one of the greatest men in
the history of the greatest & most horrible of cities." And the book ends with a poem by Studs'
friend, the author-publisher-poet Haki Madhubiti. These are its last lines:
"your being among us is the rare,
ripe, swinging musical
and we, the chorus, are still taking
lessons, breaking only
to say thank you."
He wrote that a while ago, on the sad
Halloween day that Studs died.
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
