Ties That Bind

July 22, 2013
A testimony to the power of narrative and vision, this inspirational collection gathers stories from the first decade of Isay’s (Listening Is an Act of Love) oral history experiment, StoryCorps. Since 2003, StoryCorps’s staff has recorded 50,000 interviews with nearly 100,000 participants. In the introduction, founder Isay, recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant,” presents the project’s premise: “A microphone gives people the license to ask questions they wouldn’t normally ask, and... being listened to reminds people how much their lives matter.” Among the many incredible stories transcribed for the book are the following: a man who falls five stories from a window as a boy and is caught by a stranger; an ex-soldier haunted by the fate of an Iraqi boy he befriended; and a woman who forgives, adopts, and calls “son” the man who murdered her only child. The collection features an astonishing range of voices, and the (fact-checked) stories recount exceptional events in the lives of “noncelebrated” people. As a result of the participants’ refreshing lack of cynicism, the book is appealingly down-to-earth and, ultimately, moving. The collection successfully fulfills its mission: to make readers feel “more connected, awake, and alive.” Agent: David Black, David Black Agency.