"And we're dancing with the dead / that are dancing in our head"

July 20, 2014 4:39 PM

Bringing Wes home.
How Sound is a podcast on radio storytelling on Public Radio Exchange that focuses on the story behind the radio story, and this episode is called "Bringing Wes home". I'd recommend listening to it cold with no more information than that, but if you'd like to know a bit more, the episode description is below the fold.

Wes Vose was well-loved by his family and by the community where he grew up in Woods Hole, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. Everyone was stunned when Wes died late at night in an automobile accident in 2012. He was twenty-two.
Wes’ burial was moving and memorable. The family prepared his body and built his casket. Dozens of people walked along side the pick-up truck carrying Wes and his mother as they made their way to the funeral. Hundreds of people attended — an overflowing crowd. When Wes died, a part of Woods Hole died, too.

Then Jakob Lewis showed up, about a year and a half later. A stranger with a microphone.

Jakob was a student at the Transom Story Workshop in Woods Hole in the spring of 2014. He learned about the funeral soon after he arrived. Jakob was simultaneously fascinated by the way the Vose’s and the community grieved yet wary of trespassing on the family’s privacy.

Ultimately, Jakob’s curiosity won out and the result is “Bringing Wes Home.”

Jakob’s approach to the story offers valuable insight for others “parachuting” into a community to report on a traumatic event. He says he “walked with” the Voses into their fear and sadness and anger. “I felt like a counselor or pastor.”

posted by Lexica (1 comment total)

How Sound is kind of my default podcast recommendation, because it's led me to so many other great podcasts (eg, Here Be Monsters). But I also love to see how the sausage gets made, and it's really deepened my appreciation of the crafting of radio, kind of like how the New Yorker's Fiction Podcast doesn't just present, but discusses works.
posted by unmake at 1:22 AM on July 21, 2014 [2 favorites]