Susan Stamberg

And the truth of the person came through, as a matter of fact.

There was enough of that sense of rambling and kind of disorganization that you got that

but not so much that you would end up throwing your hands up in the air and saying, why do I have to listen to this?

Because there were good nuggets there, useful nuggets.

But it's interesting.

It's such a good question because they're problems that we face, I think.

Well, that happened, as a matter of fact, with Joan Didion.

And I write about that in my book, as a matter of fact.

I discovered in preparing—she was one of my favorite writers and has been for years.

In fact, I hadn't known anything about her until the first week I set foot in the studios of National Public Radio and someone on the staff—

A fellow named Doug Terry said, read this woman's stuff.

She's fantastic.

And it was Diddy, and it was her first collection of essays called Slashing Towards, because it's British, so it's got an S on the end, Slashing Towards Bethlehem.

Took them home and thought, oh, my Lord, I've never read reporting like this.

It's sensational.

Well, years later, that must have been around 71, 77 or 78, she went on a book tour, her only one.

So in preparation for interviewing her, I got out everything.

And she was touring with the novel, her last novel, A Book of Common Prayer.

Got out the first collection of essays.

Got out all the early novels.