For years, I’ve been meaning to write a piece about Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview show on America’s National Public Radio. For about as long as I’ve been telling friends, “Terry Gross should get some kind of Pulitzer Prize!”
What finally got me typing away today was this: A couple of months back, my wife and I finished watching the 15 available seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. We knew we had to get over “empty nest syndrome” and adopt a new TV-drama family.
Before long, we discovered The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Alas, only three seasons of it are out. We came to another abrupt end this week!
We’re very particular, as I suppose everyone is in his or her own way. The series has to grab both of us. We just hadn’t been receiving any tips that we felt might work.
This morning, while doing volunteer delivery work, bringing food to a pantry 20 miles (32 kilometres) away, I clicked a Fresh Air podcast on my phone.
An Indian-American actress named Mindy Kaling was talking to Terry about her current Netflix series, Never Have I Ever. Loosely based on Kaling’s teenage years, the series is about the challenges and adventures of an Indian-American high school girl in Los Angeles.
Barbara and I loved the short-lived high school series Freaks and Geeks. In fact, in all these years, it’s the only one we’ve watched twice. Listening to the vibrant Fresh Air interview with Kaling, I felt we had a new winner.
But I’m just as likely to get new input about some arcane aspect of the Trump administration’s shenanigans, or hear Leonard Cohen’s son Adam eulogize his recently-deceased Dad, or—memorable, I suppose, because it was so unusual—listen to an author describe his spelunking (caving) in the subterranean world of actively-used and long-abandoned tunnels under the New York City streets.
Matchless technique and a vibrant voice
I remember the day I first heard the name of the show, in the mid-‘90s. I was driving from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where I lived then, up to Wilmington, North Carolina—an hour-plus trip—to visit a friend. I don’t recall the actual content of that day’s interview, only that the show’s name seemed perfect, and positively exuded vitality when Terry uttered it.
Mention a celebrated author, musician or outstanding practitioner in any creative field, from fashion design to film-making to running a restaurant, and there’s a good chance he or she has an interview in the Fresh Air archives, which are all online, by the way. When a noted subject passes away, Terry usually does a replay. I don’t know who would compare in past generations, but for our times, I think of her as the interviewer of record.
Terry has a rotating crew of collaborators, each with expertise in a particular area. After the main interview, one or two of them usually adds a brief specialty feature. David Bianculli reports on TV-related topics; Maureen Corrigan, on books; John Powers, pop culture; and Justin Chang, film, to name a few. Geoff Nunberg, a linguist and author of the book The Way We Talk Now, was an interesting contributor who is still listed but whose pieces I haven’t heard for quite a while.
Someone recently asked me to give more specifics about Terry’s interview style and the unusual “aliveness” of her voice. I can say this about her manner: Terry is completely natural. She asks whatever curiosity might inspire “Everywoman” to ask. And she will keep going on a track of questions. She doesn’t hold back just to be “nice,” but she manages to delve into very intimate areas, somehow, in a way that almost always inspires an equally frank and intimate reply. On very, very rare occasions, of course, an interview subject has gotten up and left in the middle of the show.
Terry’s voice is another story. About that I can only answer that it’s some kind of miracle. You just have to listen.
The Fresh Air staff’s procurement of timely interviewees is another huge asset for the show. Just today, during my walk, I listened to not one but two invaluable recent features: Terry’s May 11 talk with New York Times Magazine‘s Emily Bazelon about “Covid-19, Voter Safety, and the 2020 Election, and her May 14’s interview with author John Barry, about his book on the 1918 Pandemic. I returned home with better muscle tone and new perspective on both topics.
Terry must be nearing 70 now. I don’t know if she has any plans to retire. My impression is she delegates more major interviews to her stand-in, Dave Davies, these days.
I’m glad I’ve been able to churn out a few words in praise of her matchless technique and her one-of-a-kind voice. She has enriched the lives of millions of us, so much that the subject-heading of this piece is scarcely an exaggeration.
(Full disclosure: Barbara and I watched an episode of Never Have I Ever the night after I drafted this article. Though I remain taken with that interview, neither of us really felt like the show itself was for us, after all.)
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image 1: Wikimedia Commons; image 2: National Public Radio; image 3: Gerald L. Ford School / Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons
