792: When to Leave
This American Life
03/05/23
•61m
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People staring down that hardest of questions: Is now the time? To leave?
- Prologue: Russian forces have besieged the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Shelling is constant. Most residents have fled. But there are holdouts who haven’t left yet. Producer Valerie Kipnis introduces guest host Nancy Updike to a volunteer evacuator, Kuba Stasiak, who is trying to get the remaining people out safely. (13 minutes)
- Act One: Dr. Amelia Huntsberger loves everything about her rural town in northern Idaho. Her OB-GYN practice. Her patients. Her family. But for almost a year, she’s been fighting a losing battle, and realizing that she and her family might soon have to pull up stakes and leave. (28 minutes)
- Act Two: Masha Gessen has fled their home country, Russia, twice. First as a teenager, then again as an adult. Both times, the country had become unlivable for Masha. Now Masha is watching and reporting on Russians leaving the country in droves, and reflecting on their own reasons for leaving when they did. (13 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Previous Episode
639: In Dog We Trust
February 26, 2023
•59m
Exactly how much are the animals that live in our homes caught up in our everyday family dynamics?
Next Episode
793: The Problem with Ghosts
March 12, 2023
•63m
The ghosts that visit us, the ghosts that never do, and the ghosts that walk among us.
- Prologue: Chaunte Vaughn’s mother recently died of Parkinsons. Even though Chaunte doesn't believe in ghosts, she is visited by her mom's ghost multiple times. And, to Chaunte’s disappointment, everything her mother's ghost has to say seems pointless. (8 minutes)
- Act One: Reporter Chenjerai Kumanyika visits Savannah, Georgia to learn about the city’s popular ghost tours. He’s heard the tourist attractions actually include the brutal reality of slavery. What he finds is more sinister and complex than advertised. (23 minutes)
- Act Two: Abby Stein’s youngest sister got married last month, the last of 13 kids in their family. At the wedding, an uninvited guest showed up. (12 minutes)
- Act Three: In the 1920s, at the height of the Spiritualism movement, a friendship blossomed between two men with opposing views on the topic: Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Houdini was a skeptic. Conan Doyle was the de facto leader of the movement. On a vacation in Atlantic City, the famous author tried to help his skeptical friend talk to the ghost of his beloved mother. Sean Cole reports. (13 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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