Susan Stamberg

And I got home with days' worth of tape and said to myself, what am I going to do here?

This is a writer of major talent, but clearly some damage has been done, some emotional damage or something.

Why reveal that?

Here's my choice here.

It's journalistically dishonest for me to clean up this tape, to build in through editing a logic that in life was not there.

On the other hand, look at the harm to do.

For what end?

to simply present this kind of rambling to listeners.

It will neither edify them nor enlighten them nor really be true to the spirit of the person.

So I ended up doing a fairly careful edit in which on tape the person came out far more logical than in life that person was.

But I guess it was troubling enough to me that I'm telling it to you now because there was a certain kind of dishonesty

too, that it wasn't real.

It was edited.

Then again, life, you know, unedited life is fairly rambling and has very little shape or proportion to it.

And editing sort of imposes that structure on it.

But it was troublesome to me, Terry, I'll tell you.

It still bothers me, that kind of choice.

And it happens all the time, often.

Did you consider releasing it, too?

No, never, because I knew there were wonderful moments on it.