Listening is an Act of Love: A Celebration of Life from the StoryCorps project

Edited by Dave Isay

Penguin Publishing

StoryCorps is an epic social experiment about Americana that was inaugurated in 2003 at New York’s Grand Central Terminal in order to “celebrate the lives of the uncelebrated,” as Studs Terkel described it. Pairs of people enter a booth where a facilitator helps them have a dialogue about a key moment in their life. One copy of the forty-minute recording goes home with the speakers; the other is saved at the Library of Congress. Listening is an Act of Love is a compilation of forty-nine of the most compelling personal sagas out of the more than ten thousand that have been recorded. It allows readers to savor the narratives and see photos of the tellers.

These dialogues capture conversations between people across North America. From New Town, North Dakota to New York City, friends, relatives, and colleagues discuss history, hardship, survival, love, heartbreak, and perseverance. Reading this book will take you into a blossoming romance between employees in a public school and into a conversation between two prisoners in jail. It will take you into a hospital after Hurricane Katrina, into a burning tower on 9/11, and into the life of a Pentecostal preacher’s son. You’ll read of how much joy a mother brought to her child by making a barn out of paper. You'll feel what it was like for a boy to sit in a car outside of a patient's home, snacking on laxatives, while his doctor father delivered a baby. The characters are male and female, young and old, wealthy and poor, of varied races and backgrounds.

The placement of the speakers’ photos after the tale helps readers listen to the voice before making assumptions about him or her based on appearance alone. It teaches us how inaccurate the snap judgments we make can be. People often forget what can be learned from simply listening.

Listening is an Act of Love not only provides a compelling slice of American history, it also reminds us that we are all more alike than we are different. Everyone has a story. Sometimes you just have to ask for it.

Review by Jessica Jacobson