Before it falls through the cracks...

...a plug for an upcoming interview:

Sometime ago in this space, I noted one of my favorite aspects to life in Public Radioland - interviewing people with something to say. I've also noted my least favorite aspects, such as interviewing musicians who manage, despite my best interviewing efforts, to segue the conversation from harmonica technique to the Zapruder film. Since those posting, the 19 Minutes World Media Headquarters has taken up residence in the offices of Milwaukee Public Radio, where I'm now the executive producer of a program that exists basically to interview people with something to say. Sometimes I get to do the interviews, such as one that'll air on Friday.

If you haven't heard of Danielle Trussoni's book, "Falling Through the Earth" yet, you will soon. (Come to think of it, you did just now.) It's a compelling memoir of a childhood turned on its end by her father's experience as a tunnel rat in the Vietnam War. The book is at times heartbreaking, and at other times bitingly funny.

Trussoni, who survived an existence that could easily have crushed her, went on to an academic career at the University of Wisconsin and at the Iowa Writers Workshop. And then visited Vietnam, where her seminal experience in the same tunnels her dad explored 30 years before eventually led to the memoir - and led to her eloquent appearance in the Milwaukee Public Radio studios (where, let's face it, all roads eventually lead to).

It's a book worth reading, especially in a climate in which thousands of Americans are returning from war. And hopefully, an interview worth streaming. Stay tuned.