Touch and Go

A sort of masterpiece about a life which itself is a sort of masterpiece.... A most remarkable book. Oliver Sacks, bestselling author of Awakenings. At age ninety-five, Studs Terkel has written about everyone's life, it seems, but his own. In Touch and Go, he offers us a memoir that capturing the spirit of the man himself is youthful, vivacious, and enormous fun. Terkel takes us back to his early childhood in 1920s Chicago, recalls his early experiences as a law student during the Depression and as an actor on radio and on stage, and tells of his beginnings as a disc jockey and as an interviewer and oral historian. Finally, he discusses his role in the 1948 presidential election and his involvement with progressive politics, leading to his travails during the McCarthy period when he was blacklisted and thrown out of work despite having become by then one of the country's most popular TV performers. Through it all, Terkel reflects upon the hundreds of people and events that have influenced him over the years and his lifelong concern for the lives of the uncelebrated for lending voice to the face in the crowd. Fans of Studs Terkel will find much to discover in these remarkable reminiscences; others will be captivated to learn of the unique and eclectic life of one of Americas greatest living legends.