Talking to Myself: a Memoir of My Times

Pantheon Books (NY), 1977. 1ST. HARDBOUND. VERY GOOD in VERY GOOD jacket. pp. 330. Publisher: Pantheon Books; 1st edition (January 1, 1977)Language: English HARDBOUND: 316 pages ISBN-10: 0394411021 ISBN-13: 978-0394411026 Item Weight: 1.48 pounds. Talking to Myself is a very different kind of memoir. It cuts across worlds, across years, across the vast spectrum of people that Terkel has known, from workers to famous stars, from Nobel Prize winners to ordinary folk. In recounting his own life, Terkel uses some of the methods that have made his radio programs so famous. He cuts from a visit to Chief Luthuli in South Africa to a memoir of the McCarthy period, from growing up among the petty gangsters of Chicago in the thirties to confronting the bigger gangsters of our political life in the sixties, from acting in a radio soap opera to discussing film with Fellini. The book is, can we say, studded with marvelous anecdotes, high (and low) adventure, moments that are unexpectedly hilarious or surprisingly moving. In Talking to Myself, Studs Terkel has deliberately kept away from some of the traditional areas of autobiography. He has, instead, told the story of a man whose life has been so varied that its retelling becomes an astonishingly evocative story of our time.