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Piece Description
"My dad spent 23 years in prison. He started off as a Cuban Revolutionary and later ended up a convicted felon in the United States. We only talked once in the last 16 years. Then, out of the blue I got an email from him. He wrote, I'm home. Your biological father, Hector.'" Jeanine went to meet Hector and recorded the meeting. Then, with producer Viki Merrick, she told the remarkable story of their relationship, forged in the imagination, built on disappointment and hope. Featured on Transom.org. For more information and conversation, visit Family Sentence on Transom.
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Review of Family SentenceThis is great radio filled with so many beautiful moments. It manages to be incredibly emotional while at the same time being almost shockingly unsentimental. And that Jeanine is a radio novice works towards making the piece feel totally new and fresh (even the fact that she felt uncomfortable getting close enough to her subject to mic him perfectly has a kind of symbolic, poetic value). It’s a kind of literary radio, too-- the way it goes back and forth between the narration and the actualities, always contextualizing and adding to what we’ve heard. In this way, the story builds, becoming so surprising as it goes that in the course of listening, most of my expectations were totally defied. Yet like many of the best stories told, it ends with forgiveness. |
Timing and Cues
music close to 29:00 + credit = 29:10
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Posted on March 28, 2005 at 12:30 PM | Permalink
Review of Family Sentence
Jeanine Cornillot has written and recorded a beautiful piece here (with help from veterans Viki Merrick and Jay Allison). Radio novice Cornillot interviews her father after 16 years without contact. In moments that are intensely personal to Cornillot, she delicately measures questions before she asks them, and he offers surprisingly truthful, unemotional answers and insights. He is entirely unhesitating in his responses and seems to completely understand and is unregretting of his motives. Cornillot is initially surprised by his honesty and machismo, but learns to accept it as part of his character. In the end, though she is nt substantially closer to the man, she finds that she maintains the same concern for his well-being that she had while he was in prison even now that he is out.