What to ask the woman

who's asked it all

By Anna Christopher

She's one of public radio's most endearing personalities, an intelligent, gentle and provocative voice that more than four million people tune to and count on each week. And to think Terry Gross almost didn't find her way behind the microphone.

"I always liked to read, and early in my life, my ambition was to be a writer," said Gross, host of the NPR program Fresh Air. "But when I got to college, I realized I don't have stories I want to tell. When I found radio, it was a way of combining reading, telling stories and learning -- the whole world was filled with stories waiting to be told."

Now, nearly 30 years after Gross began posing challenging questions to actors, authors, musicians and politicians on Fresh Air, she is fulfilling her literary desire with the release of All I Did Was Ask -- a rich collection of 40 interviews with people in the arts culled from the Fresh Air archive. Writer John Updike is there, as is comedian and Late Night host Conan O'Brien, soulful baritone Johnny Cash, and actors Michael Caine, Dustin Hoffman and Jodie Foster.

KISS rocker Gene Simmons, whose bad behavior on the show in 2002 earned him the title of Entertainment Weekly's "Male Crackpot of the Year," is also included in the collection.

Gross said selecting the personalities to include in All I Did Was Ask from the thousands of names in the Fresh Air register was a daunting task, one that required her to alter her way of both reading and listening.

In the following interview, the veteran journalist talks about preparing for an episode of Fresh Air, how the people close to her have influenced her work and why she has stayed in public radio.

Q: The title for All I Did Was Ask came from a lecture you gave. Why do you think it works?

A: That is my job -- I'm the one who asks the questions and everyone else does the other stuff: they book the guests, they edit the tape, they deal with all the administrative decisions. I ask the questions. Also, it's funny. It's like, 'Geez, all I did was ask! Don't get so angry.'

Q: How often to you feel that way when you're interviewing someone?

A: More often than not people are fine with the questions I ask. With most interviews, I tell people if I ask anything too personal they should let me know, so even if they are taken aback by a question, they know that I'm not going to use torture techniques to get them to answer it. I'm just going to accept the fact that it's too personal, and that that's okay. But, in political interviews it's different. I don't let them draw the line between what's personal and what's public for various reasons.

Q: Can you describe your approach to doing this book?

A: The first thing I did was look through the roster of names to decide who was worth including in the book. When I had narrowed it down to a couple hundred names, then it was time to start reading transcripts and listening to tapes (with collaborator Margaret Pick). What I found was, you couldn't really tell what was going to be good for the book until you read it. Sometimes, if you listened to a tape, it sounded great because the person has so much life and personality in their voice. But when you're just reading it word by word on the page without that voice, it's not necessarily as interesting. And the opposite also holds true, too -- sometimes people who aren't dynamic speakers really speak well when you read it on the page.

There are interviews where that person has a certain charm and you love their work, and that charm just really carries on the radio. On the radio, the quality of somebody's voice is like the third dimension. When you take that dimension away, you really have to deal with the words and how well they're said.

Q: For some of the interviews in the book, like the Johnny Cash, they were very emotional to read. Did you have a similar experience?

A: That's partially what I meant in the introduction that I learned things that went right past me in the studio. Particularly for me, I'm missing part of what's being said because I'm always thinking 'What does that mean the next question is? Where am I going?' Also, you can read really slowly and get the details; you can re-read something, which you can't do on the radio.

Q: Now that it's you heading out on a book tour, how does it feel?

A: It's interesting to be on the other side of the side I'm always on. Since Fresh Air started as a local show in 1975, I've been interviewing authors with new books. What I found back in the `70s was that authors on book tours got really exhausted by both the physical travel involved with the book tour, and by the experience of having to talk over and over and over again about themselves and the subject of their book. Even just seeing the process of how a book is put out after reading so many hundreds of thousands of books over the past few years, it's been really interesting. I feel like after years of interviewing authors who were tired and cranky from the book tours, my thank you is I'm going to get to be one of those tired and cranky authors.

Q: In your acknowledgements, you thank your mother for introducing you to the pleasure of reading. Do you remember the first few books your mother introduced you to?

A: One of the first books I remember her getting with me at the library was A Hole is to Dig, which had illustrations by Maurice Sendak who's in All I Did Was Ask. And the text was by Ruth Krauss. I really loved that book. Other than that, I don't really remember the books, but I remember that she'd take me to the library and I'd get to look through the library and help choose.

Q: Do you think that early appreciation for literature led to your desire to become a journalist?

A: I always liked to read. Early in my life, my ambition was to be a writer. And then when I got to college, I realized I don't have stories I want to tell. When I found radio, it was like a way of combining reading, telling stories, learning, but the material was all out there -- it wasn't a question of coming up with stories yourself. The whole world was filled with stories waiting to be told. There's also a small element of show business in it, too, which I also love. I love theatre, not that I ever intended on being in it, but there is an element of theater to radio, which I like.

Q: The book only contains interviews with people in the arts, but you also cover politics on Fresh Air, and current affairs. Can you talk about your favorite aspects of both types of interviews?

A: I have different styles for both. For the political interviews I try to be fair. Objective is a difficult word because I think we all have our opinions, but the goal is to not drag them into the interview. That doesn't mean I don't ask challenging questions. I think that's what part of being fair is: asking questions of power. But even when I'm asking the really challenging questions, asking them as neutrally as possible

But in the arts, I think the arts are pointless unless you're passionate about them. Unless you really engage, unless you love music, unless you really enjoy movies, unless you really like reading, what's the point? So when I'm interviewing a musician, I want my passion to show.

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