Fresh Air Producer Amy Salit interviews singer Alejandro Escovedo. He's formerly with the band True Believers. Escovedo is esteemed for his songwriting ability and described as "poet of the ordinary event." His new solo release is "With These Hands," (Rykodisc)
Former U.S. Senator George McGovern. He has a new book called "Terry: My Daughter's Life and Death Struggle with Alcoholism." (Villard) After a night of drinking in December of 1994, Terry was found dead in a parking lot near her home in Madison, Wisconsin. Terry's addiction plagued her almost her entire life, despite countless efforts at rehabilitation. The book draws upon Terry's letters and journals, interviews with loved ones, and medical and police records.
Specialist in memory and language disorders, Dr. Barry Gordon. Gordon's book "Memory: Remembering and Forgetting in Everyday Life" (Mastermedia Ltd. The book can be ordered by calling 1-800-334-8232) looks at recognition, recall, memory blocks and the effects of drugs. The book also gives tips to increasing memory recall and dispels some common myths about the brain and memory. Gordon is a behavior neurologist, cognitive neuroscientist and experimental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
Movie critic John Powers reviews the new action thriller "The Rock," starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. In the film, Cage and Connery team up to retake Alcatraz from a crazed general.
Book critic Maureen Corrigan gives her summer reading round-up (part one): "Neanderthal," by John Darnton (Random House); "Firestorm," by Nevada Barr (Putnam); "The World at Night," by Alan Furst (Random House); "Ruined By Reading," by Lynne Sharon Schwartz (Beacon).
British author A.S. Byatt. Byatt is known by many Americans for "Possession," a Booker Prize-winning Victorian novel published here in 1990. Her new novel, "Babel Tower," is just hitting the bookstores (Random House). Set in the turbulent 1960s, the book is about Frederica, a young woman involved in a divorce and custody suit, as well as the prosecution of an "obscene" book. "Babel Tower" is the third book in a planned quartet of novels ("The Virgin in the Garden" and "Still Life") set in different mid-century time frames.
Photojournalists and identical twins David and Peter Turnley. Between them they have photographed every major news event in the last 15 years. They work independently, but a joint display, ("In Times of War and Peace: The Photographs of David and Peter Turnley") will be exhibited from June 7 - September 8 in New York City. Currently, both Turnleys are based in Paris. Peter works as a contract photographer for "Newsweek" and David is a staff photographer for the "Detroit Free Press."
Poet Hal Sirowitz. His new collection of poems is "Mother Said," (Crown Publishers) and is written in the vernacular of a mother. One reviewer wrote of the poems, "the logical step forward in the comic treatment of Oedipal angst." Sirowitz has appeared on MTV's "Spoken Word Unplugged" and on PBS's "The United States of Poetry."
Kristin Luker is Professor of Sociology and Law at the University of California. She's the author of the new book, "Dubious Conceptions: The Politics of Teenage Pregnancy," (Harvard University Press).
Novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd. He's written nine novels and and biographies of Charles Dickens and T.S. Eliot. His latest biography is of the 18th century poet, painter and engraver William Blake. It's "Blake: A Biography," (Alfred A. Knopf)
Singer/songwriter Elvis Costello. Previously with the band The Attractions, he later went solo. Since then he has performed and recorded with The Brodsky Quartet and jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. He's written about 300 songs. His new release is "All This Useless Beauty" (Warner Bros) which he recorded with The Attractions.
On December 3, 1994, World class cyclist Greg LeMond announced his retirement. This ended a dramatic career that included winning the Tour De France three times. Two of the wins came after he was seriously wounded in a hunting accident. LeMond talks to Terry about the struggles of his comeback. LeMond left the sport after being diagnosed with a rare muscle disease that weakened his performance.
Filmmaker Carma Hinton talks about "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" a film she co-produced with her husband Richard Gordon. The film chronicles the Chinese democracy movement that began in the spring of 1989 and ended in the Tiananmen Square massacre. The film will show on PBS' Frontline program on Tuesday, June 4, 1996 which marks the 7th anniversary. Hinton and her husband run a production company called Long Bow Group, Inc in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Host of ABC'S "Nightline" Ted Koppel. He has a new memoir about his 16 years with the news show and his life before journalism. It's called "Nightline: History in the Making and the Making of Television" (Times Books, by Ted Koppel and Kyle Gibson).
