Interviews

Rather than interviewing others, you may assume you can depend on your memory when you write your lifestories—but memory isn’t always as reliable as you want it to be! In this lesson, you will study why to conduct an interview which people who shared the experience you are writing about and how to do so. The lesson is geared to interviewing older relatives but is just as true of interviewing a sibling, a progeny or a co-worker.

"I remember my uncle as cold and uncaring, but he paid my college tuition. Why have I forgotten that?" —Workshop writer

• Memory can fail you. You simply may not be able to recall the information you need to write about another person—or yourself—with accuracy and detail.
• Memory can mislead you. It can blur the negative role you may have played and cast another’s positiverole in the shadows. Memory does tend to be flattering to the one doing remembering. Conversely, it may elevate your having been “bad” to “really bad” when you were merely thoughtless or small in your actions.
• Memory can simply be wrong. Time has ways of altering a memory. You may forget that you didn’t know the facts at the time. You may confuse other people’s accounts with your own experience of an event. It is also possible, because of your age or your needs at the time, that you had a partial or biased view of all that happened and why.

Conducting interviews (and the research ofthe next lesson) will stimulate, supplement and correct your memory. These activities will support and add to the facts and impressions you remember. They may also force you to evaluate what is true.

Before the Interview

A good memoir writer is a detective who mistrusts her information until she has proven it true beyond doubt. Parts of your family lore may be more fiction than fact. No matter how oft-told, those tales may be more tall than true!

1. Select whom you will interview. If your time is limited, or your family is large and offers many choices, it will be all the more important to identify a manageable number of knowledgeable relatives and friends to interview.
2. Make clear preliminary arrangements with the people you will interview. Be specific about the meeting time, the length of the interview, the place where it will occur, and the conditions necessary for its success. Encourage the interviewee to gather memory jogs (photos, clippings, mementos—see Chapter 2 of "Turning Memories Into Memoirs", Section D, as well as Section G of Chapter 4) that can be used as warm-ups. Be very specific in your requests. Vague requests like “We’ll need a good amount of time” can be interpreted so differently that they are useless in making arrangements. Instead say, “We’ll need a two-hour block on Tuesday the fifth. Does 2 PM to 4 PM work for you?”
3. Ascertain who else is likely to want to participate in the interview—and decide whether that person ought to be persuaded or dissuaded from sitting in. An unexpected, or inappropriate, personcan blur the focus of your interview.
4. Conversely, don’t dismiss other people’s input too quickly. Their outlinesof their experiences can be valid for your family, too. By listening carefully to an articulate person talk about a general experience, you might learn a lot about your own family.
5. Sometimes, an observer at an interview can provide important coaching. “John, why don’t you tell about the time your mother confronted the company store manager?” or perhaps the other person will offer: “But, wasn’t that before [date format=”Y” time=”71 years ago”]—we were still living on Maple Street then. It wasn’t until a month after Edward was born in January of [date format=”Y” time=”70 years ago”] that we moved to Elm Street!”

Clear communication and thoughtful preparation of your goals for each interview will heighten your chances of success.

At the Interview

"I wish I hadn’t wasted time with my older relatives asking questions about my grandparents such as, ‘What were they like?’ Apparently they were ‘nice,’ ‘everyone liked them,’ ‘they were good people.’ I ought to have asked, ‘What did they do for work and for recreation?’ ‘What appliances were available in the kitchen?’ ‘Who were their best friends?’ Then, I would know what they were really like!" —Workshop writer

1. Come to the interview with a list of questions. By doing so, you are more likely not to forget to ask a crucial question—and more likely to leave with the information you need. Because you have listed the information you are looking for (what work conditions were in the textile mills in the early 1930s, or how tenure was achieved in the 1940s, etc.), you can keep the interview on track. Toward the end, say fifteen minutes before the time you–or they–need to leave, check your list. Sometimes key questions have not yet been broached, and you ought to focus the remaining time on getting answers to those questions. That’s when you will be very grateful for the list I have encouraged you to prepare.
2. Be specific with interviewees about what you are looking for. “I want to know about the first years your parents were in this country. First, can you tell me the name of the town in Norway they came from?” (Always be thinking of memory jogs. For instance, having a map of Norway on hand (or searchable on the web) could be useful. The person might say, “I don’t really remember, but it was not far from Oslo. Oh, yes, there it is on the map! I remember now.”)
3. Take notes during the interview. There’s nothing more frustrating and wasteful of everyone’s time than returning home and not remembering significant details. At the beginning of the interview, tell interviewees you need to jot down their answers, but they should not try to interpret the importance you are attributing to various bits of information by the length of time you spend writing them. If you are not comfortable writing notes, consider using a recording device to preserve the information for later retrieval.
4. Be wary of asking for information that can be answered by a yes or a no. These questions are called close-ended and they do not deepen or extend the conversation.
5. You: “Did you enjoy working on a cattle ranch?”
6. Interviewee: “No.”
7. Instead of the above question, which is reasonablybut (for you) uselessly answered with a no, you might say:
8. You: “Tell me something you liked about working on the cattle ranch and then something you didn’t like about it.”
9. This second example is an open-ended statement. “Tell me about…” cannot be answered by a yes or a no. An open-ended statement forces the interviewee to provide additional information–often very useful information.
10. Do not provide information or conclusions. If you were to say “Those were meaningful years for you!” you might be putting words into the interviewee’s mouth. Her answers may then reflect not what she is thinking but herwish not to contradict you! Insteadask “Can you tell me what conclusions you have drawn from this experience?”
11. Do not rush your interview. Tolerate silences and allow time for thinking. During these silences, it is likely that your interviewee could be arriving at new definitions of his experience. Or perhaps he is simply sorting his memories right on the spot. All of this takes time. People who are slow to speak could also be shy or simply unused to sharing ideas and memories. Here are three techniques to help you keep the interview flowing.

• Repeat the interviewee’s last words. This can re-affirm your deep interest and help her feel comfortable. For instance:
• Aunt Jeanette: “Those were difficult times.”
• You, nodding your head in support: “Mmm. …difficult times.”
• This is the antithesis of saying, “Those must have been difficult times because wages were so low!” When the interviewer (you) provides the “because…” she is planting information and could really end up quoting herself!
• Ask a question based on the interviewee’s last words.Aunt Jeanette: “Those were difficult times.”
• You: “How were they difficult?” or “Why do you think they were difficult for you?”
• Remain silent after the interviewee has spoken.Aunt Jeanette: “Those were difficult times.”
• Silence—even an awkwardly long one! Aunt Jeanette, who is wondering why you are not speaking, feels compelled to fill in the silence: “Well, those were difficult times because Uncle Hank was a union leader and he lost his job. It was around that same time that I had a miscarriage. I couldn’t stand all day at the loom. I was still too weak to go back to work.”
• This “silent treatment” is very effective in eliciting information beyond what an interviewee had originally thought to offer. To achieve this effect, however, you must not speak to break a silenceas you would in a social situation. Risk awkwardness for revelation! Sit patiently. Your silence will allow your interviewee time to synthesize, analyze—and share.

1. End an interview with the question, “Do you have anything you want to add to what I have asked?” Often the interviewee will share unexpected, and potentially valuable, information. The new material is often prefaced by a statement like, “This may not be important but…” What you get then is often quite interesting, useful, and important.
2. Plan enough time to be with your subject. Elders move at a slower pace. Be aware that the fast tempo you take for granted may be exhausting and unpleasant for them. Your elderly interviewee may not have considered some of these memories for some time; it may be disturbing to relive the past. Allow for a “cool down” period—small talk as you put your materials away—that will ease your interviewee back to the present and give her a chance to re-establish her equilibrium. If appropriate, ask, “Are you comfortable with my leaving now? Is there anything I can get for you before I go?” A phone call later to check in and thank your elder is both kind and comforting.

Action Steps

Prepare for the Interview

• What's missing? List the missing information you need to write your lifestories.
• Who are the people who might provide you with this information? Prioritize your list according to how knowledgeable your interviewees are likely to be about the information you need and how “interview-able” you feel each of these persons are.
• Plan ahead. Set up interview times. Ask the interviewee to bring memory jogs. Anticipate problems you are likely to encounter fromother people and from the location where you will be.
• Can you include others? In what ways could other people contribute to the success of this interview? Think of who they are and invite them.

At the Interview

• What questions will you ask? In the previous exercise, you set up an interview. Now, based on the information you need, make a list of questions to ask during this interview.
• Will you record it? If you intend to bring an audio recording device, use it at home first to ensure that you are comfortable handling it and that it works. Make sure you have enough memory available on the device for a long interview. Arriving with a nearly full memory is not what you need.
• Review your list of questions. If you are not used to asking open-ended questions, practice wording each one on your list as an open-ended one.

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