Q: How would you characterize your role in putting the book together, in getting people to articulate those feelings?

A: I've written the introduction to the book, as well as brief introductions to some profiles. But the book was written by 134 people. Now, I'm not being unduly modest--just explaining what is. What is, I made the book, I mean wrote the book. But the analogy I draw is between myself and a gold prospector. The gold prospector looks for the place, the terrain where there may be something below the surface that is gold. So in 1849 they head off for California, and later on for the Klondike in Alaska, right? Well, I head for certain territory, the territory being that person, whoever he is. He may be interesting, may have some gold in his life. So you find the place, the prospector does, by virtue of some divining rod or some hunch. That's how I find the person. Then he, the prospector, starts digging, digging, digging deep into the earth. I don't dig so much as just start digging operations in which the person is talking--in that sense, digging, into his life. Now finally, the prospector finds the ore--what he thinks is the ore--very rough stuff. In my case, each interview, when transcribed, is 100 pages, let's say. Imagine 100 pages for each person: the book would be 50 million words, 50,000 pages. So suppose there are ten pages in it of 100, one-tenth, or eight pages, that is the gold. You've got to synthesize and cut. The gold prospector does what? He refines, doesn't he?

So how could I describe what I've been doing? An adventure. Also trying to find different people, whether it be the car hiker [parking lot attendant], Lovin' Al Pommier, or a spot welder, or the airline stewardess, or the telephone operator. Or a certain waitress in a restaurant I went to. She seemed good. The one I called Dolores Dante.

DOLORES DANTE

(an excerpt from her interview in "Footwork," a chapter in "Working")

She has been a waitress in the same restaurant for twenty-three years. Many of its patrons are credit card carriers on an expense account--conventioneers, politicians, labor leaders, agency people. Her hours are from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., six days a week.

"I became a waitress because I needed money fast, and you don't get it in an office. My husband and I broke up and he left me with debts and three children. My baby was six months. The fast buck, your tips. The first ten-dollar bill that I got as a tip, a Viking guy gave to me. He was a very robust, terrific atheist. Made very good conversation for us, 'cause I am too.

"I just can't keep quiet. I have an opinion on every single subject there is. In the beginning it was theology, and my bosses didn't like it. Now I am a political and my bosses don't like it. I speak sotto voce. But if I get heated, then I don't give a damn. I can't be servile. I give service. There is a difference.

"It would be very tiring if I had to say, 'Would you like a cocktail?' and say that over and over. So I come out different for my own enjoyment. I would say, 'What's exciting at the bar that I can offer?' I can't say, 'Do you want coffee?' Maybe I'll say, 'Are you in the mood for coffee?' It becomes theatrical and I feel like Mata Hari and it intoxicates me.

"People imagine a waitress couldn't possibly think or have any kind of aspiration other than to serve food. When somebody says to me, 'You're great, how come you're just a waitress?' Just a waitress. I'd say, 'Why, don't you think you deserve to be served by me?' It's implying that he's not worthy, not that I'm not worthy. It makes me irate. I don't feel lowly at all. I myself feel sure. I don't want to change the job. I love it.

"Tips? I feel like Carmen. It's like a gypsy holding out a tambourine and they throw the coin. [Laughs] There might be occasions when the customers might intend to make it demeaning--the man about town, the conventioneer. When the time comes to pay the check, he would do little things, 'How much should I give you?' He might make an issue about it. I did say to one, 'Don't play God with me. Do what you want.' I would spit it out, my resentment--that he dares make me feel I'm operating only for a tip.

"After 16 years--that was seven years ago--I took a trip to Hawaii and the Caribbean for two weeks. Went with a lover. The kids saw it--they re all married now. [Laughs] One of my daughters said, 'Act your age.' I said, 'Honey, if I were acting my age, I wouldn't be walking. My bones would ache. You don't want to hear about my arthritis. Aren't you glad I'm happy?'"

Q: In part one of The New York Time's review of "Working," which appeared March 21, Anatole Broyard wrote: "This is the era of sentimental sociology, the apocalypse of the ordinary man. You would think they had never met one before, the way some social scientists surround him with astonishment."

A: Anatole Broyard has a problem. The fact is, he's never met anybody outside of the people of his own particular milieu, whatever that might be. And he has a very deep, deep illness--a malaise. It's sad. He happens to be a good writer. He's also nutty as a fruitcake to me, you see. I shouldn't say that, 'cause in a sense he pays perverse tribute to my writing. He's implying that I'm a good writer but wasting my time with these worthless people, this inert mass of people. Of course, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. He's never met 'em. 'Cause I've met 'em. [Laughs] That's pretty exciting, you know. Once you get a person alone, each one is unique. Each one has his own way of speaking, which I believe because I've seen it, I've heard it. I was there, don't you understand? [Laughs] It isn't a question of making things up: I heard it. [Laughs]

Q: He accuses you of romanticizing the common man. Let me read you a quote from the second part of his review that ran on March 22: "In yesterday's column, I raised some questions about the nature of the evidence Studs Terkel gathered by tape recording 130 people talking about their jobs. Were they telling the truth? Did they know the whole truth about themselves? Is 'Working' an accurate picture or one more instance of the intellectual's tendency to translate the ordinary American into a tragic figure trapped by fate?"