Synopses & Reviews
KQED Radio's Michael Krasny is one of the country's leading interviewers of literary luminaries, a maestro for educated listeners who prefer their discourse high and civil. He is a writer's interviewer.
But it didn't start out that way.
In Off Mike, Krasny, host of one of public radio's most popular and intellectually compelling programs, talks of his strong desire to become a novelist in the footsteps of Bellow and Philip Roth, and then discovering his real talent as a communicatora deft ability to draw others out as an interlocutor.
In a mix of memoir and reportage, Krasny takes readers inside his world. He gives an account of the polarizing transformation of talk radio, from his early days at KGO commercial radio, through to his current role at NPR, where he manages to keep the flow of talk in his San Francisco based show animated and politically balanced.
Forum fans and lovers of literature will be riveted by the insightful and amusing vignettes and behind the scenes accounts. They will get a taste of the sharp commentary from his encounters with panels of experts, and interviews with cultural and political personalities as well as writers.
Review
"Off Mike is an insightful homage not only to his craft, at which he has few peers, but also to the impressive litany of writers and personalities who have appeared on his show. He is as thoughtful and gracious on the page as he is behind the mike."Khaled Hosseini, best-selling author of The Kite Runner
Review
"Krasny agonizes over not having achieved the great dream of his youthto become 'a respected and valued author.' Now, arguably, he has achieved with nonfiction what he failed to do as a novelist: Off Mike is reminiscent of the enormously entertaining fiction of Herman Wouk and Neil Simon. Even if Krasny is not a bird, his writing soars."San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Krasny canonizes his talk radio career in this memoir, placing stories from his juicy backlog of interviews alongside tales of a neglectful father, his Ohio State fraternity, procreating and purchasing a home. His steadily honed love of language is palpable and infectious, suited more to the book party-hopping literary junkie than the broadcast historian. Eminent newsmakers, literary greats and iconoclasts open up to him like patients on a psychiatrists couch... "Publishers Weekly
Review
"Off Mike is an insightful homage not only to his craft, at which he has few peers, but also to the impressive litany of writers and personalities who have appeared on his show. He is as thoughtful and gracious on the page as he is behind the mike."Khaled Hosseini, best-selling author of The Kite Runner"Krasny agonizes over not having achieved the great dream of his youthto become 'a respected and valued author.' Now, arguably, he has achieved with nonfiction what he failed to do as a novelist: Off Mike is reminiscent of the enormously entertaining fiction of Herman Wouk and Neil Simon. Even if Krasny is not a bird, his writing soars."San Francisco Chronicle"Krasny canonizes his talk radio career in this memoir, placing stories from his juicy backlog of interviews alongside tales of a neglectful father, his Ohio State fraternity, procreating and purchasing a home. His steadily honed love of language is palpable and infectious, suited more to the book party-hopping literary junkie than the broadcast historian. Eminent newsmakers, literary greats and iconoclasts open up to him like patients on a psychiatrists couch... "Publishers Weekly
Review
"Perhaps the biggest plaudit to give Krasnywho aspired his whole life to be a novelist, but settled for hosting talk radio and television shows, doing live interviews and teaching collegeis that this book is well written, and will equally please literati and listeners of commercial radio."San Jose Mercury News
Review
"Krasny's true literary accomplishment is befriending America's intellectual elite in a public forum, giving the lay audience aural Cliffs Notes of modern classics without condescending to them. In that sense, Krasny is to literature through Off Mike what Al Gore is to global warming in An Inconvenient Truth: a trusted communicator of profundities, whose one excusable mistake is that he tells us more than we wanted to know about himself in the process."SF Weekly
Synopsis
Never in My Wildest Dreams is a memoir with a message. Raised in a dysfunctional family in Louisiana and the San Francisco Bay area, Belva Davis rose through the black radio industry, became the first black female reporter west of the Mississippi with her hiring at KPIX, and eventually anchored KQED’s “Evening Edition,” the station’s nightly news show. Overcoming personal and career obstacles, Davis reported on some of the era’s most explosive stories, including the rise and fall of the Black Panthers, the Jonestown massacre, and the Moscone/Milk murders. The book also recounts Davis’s interviews with world leaders, including Fidel Castro and three U.S. presidents.
Synopsis
Belva Davis is a history-maker, an award-winning journalist, and a pioneering feminist. She has traveled the world reporting on politics, terrorism, racial and gender issues, and the role of art and culture in increasing human understanding. From her hardscrabble beginnings in the Deep South during the Great Depression, she broke into journalism and made the move from segregated newspaper and radio work, becoming the first black woman hired as a commercial television news reporter on the West Coast. She has anchored at three major network affiliates—CBS, NBC, and PBS—and currently hosts a highly respected political affairs program on KQED-TV in San Francisco, the most watched public TV station in the United States.
Vicki Haddock is a longtime Bay Area journalist. She was a senior writer for the “Insight” analysis section of the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as a reporter and later an assistant city desk editor for the San Francisco Examiner. Before joining the Examiner, she was chief political writer for the Oakland Tribune.
Synopsis
A generational story that traces the life and times of Belva Davis, an African-American woman journalist and media pioneer who emerged on the scene as a TV news anchor in the early 60's and helped shape the media industry we know today.
Synopsis
Never in My Wildest Dreams is the story of a courageous journalist who helped change the face and focus of television news. Born to a 15-year old Louisiana laundress during the Great Depression and raised in the overcrowded projects of Oakland, California, Belva Davis overcame abuse, racism, and sexism to become the first black female news anchor on the West Coast.
Davis covered many of the most explosive stories of the last halfcentury, including the birth of the Black Panthers, the Peoples Temple cult that ended in the Jonestown massacre, the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the onset of the AIDS epidemic, and the terrorist attacks that first put Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s
Most Wanted list. Along the way, she encountered a cavalcade of cultural icons: Malcolm X, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Nancy Reagan, Huey Newton, Muhammad Ali, Alex Haley, Fidel Castro, and others.
Davis’ absorbing memoir traces the trajectory of an extraordinary life in extraordinary times.
About the Author
“I was not asked to write a blurb for Up from Slavery, War and Peace, or The Fire Next Time, but gladly I can say Never in My Wildest Dreams is a very important book. No people can say they understand the times in which they have lived unless they have read this book.”
— Dr. Maya Angelou
“Never in My Wildest Dreams is the fascinating account of a pioneering black woman and her tumultuous but triumphal march through a turbulent era. Overcoming one obstacle after another, Belva Davis covered some of the most explosive stories of our era—and became one of most trusted news professionals in the business. Her story is a unique version of the American Dream, and her book is an honest, insightful, and utterly riveting memoir of a shared and personal journey.”
— Senator Dianne Feinstein
“Never in My Wildest Dreams shows what it really takes to succeed as a black woman in the journalistic world in America. A must read.”
— Willie L. Brown, Jr., Chairman and CEO, Willie L. Brown Institute
“Belva Davis has lived this country’s history as only a brave black woman could and has witnessed it as a journalist with a world-class head and heart. I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to read her words in Never in My Wildest Dreams without becoming a better and braver person.”
— Gloria Steinem
“After a friendship of over 30 years, it’s astonishing to find from this revealing, heartbreaking, and inspirational book that I knew so little about the profound and historic forces that shaped Belva’s life.”
— Phil Bronstein, Editor-at-Large, Hearst Newspapers
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Coming of Age
Growing up in Louisiana, drifting from household to household, Belva moves with her family to the East Bay, where her mother abandons the family. Left with a household of adult men, Belva is sexually molested. She marries early but not happily.
Chapter 2: A Love Affair with Words
Belva works as a stringer for Jet magazine, the largest black news weekly, and moves on to black newspapers in what is still a racially segregated media market. A bitter divorce causes her to flee with her two children. A white AP foreign correspondent, fired for his drinking, shows her the ropes of the newspaper business. Working for the Bay Area Independent, she interviews Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.
Chapter 3: Breaking Barriers
Belva branches out to radio, working for two black stations (KSAN and KDIA), where a chance encounter with James Brown almost ends her budding career. In 1963, she marries Bill Moore, a news photographer who cares for her children and supports her career aspirations.
Chapter 4: Political Baptism
Belva covers the 1964 Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace, where delegates throw garbage and shout racist epithets at her and a black colleague.
Chapter 5: Learning Objectivity
Shifting to KPIX, where she becomes the first black female on television west of the Mississippi, Belva must learn new journalism standards. She meets Dr. King and Robert Kennedy and is welcomed into the home of Governor Ronald Reagan. She also interviews Stanford physicist William Shockley, who believes that black people are less capable intellectually than whites.
Chapter 6: Stepping into the Fire
Belva covers the student demonstrations at Berkeley, interviewing Joan Baez, Mario Savio, and Bettina Aptheker.
Chapter 7: Developing a Voice
As a news anchor, Belva fights to air a no-holds-barred interview with Eldridge Cleaver as well as stories on motherhood and working women. Making her points without making enemies in a competitive and often contentious newsroom, Belva continues her rise through the industry.
Chapter 8: Making a Name for Myself
By 1971, Belva is a recognized face and voice. She interviews Bob Wells, a San Quentin prisoner confined for 45 years after an initial conviction for receiving stolen property. When the story goes national, she receives her first Emmy. Wells is eventually paroled, but Belva continues to report on prison conditions, organizes concerts at San Quentin, and attracts James Brown and B.B. King to perform there.
Chapter 9: Cuba on My Mind
Accompanying a delegation led by Congressman Ron Dellums, Davis interviews Fidel Castro in Cuba. Flustered when she finally meets Castro, she begins to cry. Castro tells Belva not to worry, that their interview will be better than the one he gave Barbara Walters. Belva receives two more Emmys.
Chapter 10: Daughters in Jeopardy
After heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a police officer informs Belva that her own daughters may be kidnapped in retaliation for the Hearst abduction. The family moves and receives police protection.
Chapter 11: A Presidential Affair
When President Ford visits San Francisco, he shakes the hand of every reporter lining up to meet him—every reporter, that is, except Davis, the only African-American and woman in the room. Realizing his mistake, Ford returns to visit with Belva. Walking outside, Ford narrowly misses a bullet fired by Sara Jane Moore. The reception reminds Davis and her colleagues that the smallest gesture can be interpreted as a racial slight and opens the door to a discussion of race.
Chapter 12: Unsuspecting Target
People’s Temple leader Jim Jones tries unsuccessfully to befriend Davis, who has joined KQED as a news anchor, before a tax-evasion probe causes him to flee to Guyana with hundreds of followers. When Congressman Leo Ryan visits, he and others are killed before they can board their plane to leave. Jones and more than 900 followers then commit suicide. Later, Belva learns that her housekeeper was a People’s Temple security officer assigned to report on her.
Chapter 13: Murdering Over Differences
Belva’s daughter Darolyn befriends the daughter of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and begins working at City Hall. Shortly after the Jonestown nightmare, Darolyn calls her mother to report that Moscone has been shot. While Belva is rushing to City Hall, Bill arrives to shoot some of his most famous footage. Belva makes sure Darolyn is all right before going to work as a reporter. Her program that night for KQED wins the Best Newscast award from PBS.
Chapter 14: Underreported Stories
After the U.S. embassies are bombed by Al Qaeda in Kenya and Tanzania, Belva travels to Africa with a physician friend to deliver much-needed medical supplies. In Kenya, she and the crew face down family members of President Moy on the tarmac over possession of the cargo.
Chapter 15: Giving Back to the Community
Belva describes her work for numerous nonprofits, including the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Awards program, the De Young Museum, and the country’s first Museum of the African Diaspora.
Chapter 16: My Life Today
Belva describes her work on KQED’s “This Week in Northern California,” her family life, and the importance of receiving three honorary doctorates and what they mean to a high-school graduate.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Michael Krasny