Talk to Me: Listening Between the Lines

By Anna Deavere Smith

Book Overview

Anna Deveare Smith's award-winning one-woman shows were borne of her uniquely brilliant ability to listen. In Talk to Me she applies her rare talent to the language of political power in America. Believing that character and language are inextricably bound, Smith sets out to discern the essence of America by listening to its people and trying to capture its politics. To that end she travels to some of America's most conspicuous places, like the presidential conventions of 1996, and some of its darkest corners, like a women's prison in Maryland. And along the way she interviews everyone from janitors to murderers to Bill Clinton himself. Memoir, social commentary, meditation on language, this book is as vastly ambitious as it is compellingly unique.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385721749
• ISBN13: 9780385721745
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A great, inspiring read for those interested in politics and art

If you have read (or if you're lucky, seen) any of Anna Deavere Smith's theatre works you know she can use the words of others to inspire and empower. "Talk to Me" shows that Smith can do the same with her own words as well. In "Talk to Me" Smith tells not only the stories of others, but her own stories as well. From being a kid growing up in segregated Baltimore to a successful theatre artist taking on the task of documenting power and politics in Washington, DC and making many stops around the nation in-between. In her journey Smith is constantly in the middle of political and media-oriented events. Yet as opposed to other books dispatching on politics and media "Talk to Me" tells tales from these arenas through the eyes, and with the voice, of a true artist. Smith has proven herself to be an original and skilled documentarian of American character in her theatre works. This skill continues through "Talk to Me" as Smith's interview subjects end up spouting off golden bits of wisdom. Among the highlights: Adriana Huffington on the marriage of theatre and politics, George Stephanopoulos on the personal side of the presidency and Studs Terkel on technology and American history. Anyone fascinated in a fresh perspective on politics, art and the intermingling of the two would be wise to pick up "Talk to Me" by Anna Deavere Smith.

An artful text

I measured my time with _Talk to Me: Listening Between the Lines_ I didn't want it to end. I was most fascinated with the text, composed of so many literary forms: the interview, the memoir, the editorial, the description. I liked filling in the gaps, to imagine why one piece followed another, why this interview or memory right here, rather than later or earlier. I was not so interested in the "Washington" stuff, but rather how a creative mind works. I enjoyed the journey from segregated Baltimore to the current jet set life of assistants and phones in rented spaces to 'do a job.' I read out loud the interview lines to 'hear' it as it might have been said and heard the 'trochees' myself! I felt invited to read between Deavere-Smith's lines and I'm sorry to have the book come to an end.

"I Left My Heart in . . . ."

This book clearly deserves more than five stars, for creating the potential for much more real conversation, cooperation, and understanding in American life.Professor Anna Deavere Smith, actor, teacher, and playwright, has written the first totally new book on listening that I have ever had the pleasure to savor. This book takes you past the words, past the mannerisms, past the rehearsals . . . into the heart of the person. Your life will never be the same after you commune with this extraordinary American journey. "[Actors] speak to us because they are real in their effort to be together with a very large you, the you being all men and women." "Politicians have tried to borrow these skills, and they have misused them and ended up speaking to very few." The duality of those extremes frame the remarkable investigation of how we all relate to the American dream and political system. Ms. Smith uses many such contrasts to open your mind and illuminate what you have already grasped from a further distance away -- we're badly divided. For example, she shows how both prisoners and the guards are caught in a harmful net with one another. This sets the stage for pointing out the same thing is true of politicians and the press.Her most revealing comments are about "life inside the Beltway" as Washington insiders like to describe themselves. By the way, that means that the rest of the world is merely "outside the Beltway," an afterthought. I had an experience in Washington once that reminded me of that. It was the day of the market crash (down 22 percent) in October 1987. I was with a group of government leaders. No one mentioned the stock market at all throughout the day, as people scrambled to call their offices during breaks. About 3:30, one of the leaders finally took a minute to mention the fall, and to comment that government economists said there was nothing to worry about. We returned to discussing abstract policies without another reference to anyplace outside the Beltway again. Ms. Smith has an eloquence that is impossible to resist. Consider a few of her comparisons:" . . . [T]he incarcerated women were oddly freer vocally than the press people I interviewed, and the people who worked in the White House." "It's rare that they can reach beyond what they can identify with to feel for the other side." "The dialogue of campaigning is the dialogue of beatings." "We're all demeaned. We're all under the bed. What's under the bed? The clowns are under the bed."We are like Dante, being accompanied into Hades by Ms. Smith, as she points out the self-poisoning, self-reinforcing downward spiral of the political process. Some date its beginning to Watergate, others earlier to Vietnam. "We are not in political theater right now . . . It is all a series of commercial breaks. And it's hard to hang on to those breaks." As a result, there's no heart left in government or those who cover government. Without that heart, there can be no pro

How often do we really *listen* ?

I first recognized Anna Deveare Smith on the photo on the book jacket, for her roles in movies like The American President and Philadelphia. Upon reading this book, I have discovered her more important work, and I have become an enormous fan. Smith has spent her career listening to Americans of all walks of life --listening to the words of artists, politicians, convicts, bus drivers, mothers, cops, shop owners -- all in a quest for what she calls "the American character." With a tape recorder, Smith captures the nuances of everyday speech-the "ums" and "you knows," the stumbles and turns of phrases-and studies what they reveal about the souls of the people she interviews. As she says, "If I were to go around and listen listen listen to Americans, would I end up with some kind of a composite that would tell me more about America than what is evidently there?" In this book, Smith turns her focus to "the very peculiar world" of Washington, DC. Smith describes her experiences living in the nation's capital, exploring the role that the presidency -- and the press -- has played in defining and creating the American experience. Smith spent several years in DC, arriving on the day of the O.J. Simpson not-guilty verdict, traveling the country on the 1996 campaign trail, and witnessing the events surrounding the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The resulting book is an incredible combination of linguistics, sociology, acting, and astounding, breath-taking observation. Smith moves beyond the sound-bites, and beyond the star-gazing, to truly listen to the people at the center of the city's events -- and to the journalists who control the words heard by the rest of the nation. Reading Smith's book is an experience -- you find yourself cherishing the words as if they are poetry, and in fact, her observations are a type of poetry. (I usually read Oprah Book Club selections, which I can sometimes read in a matter of days... this book makes you stop, pause, think, go back, think some more...)