The Interviewer's Job to Disappear From the Page
Launch library · evergreen read
A finished oral history should read, as much as possible, as though the speaker is talking directly to the reader without any obstruction. The interviewer's presence should be felt only in the shape of the questions rather than in any visible commentary layered over the answers given. This disappearing act takes real discipline, especially for anyone closely connected to the family being interviewed at length.
It is tempting for an interviewer to insert context, correction or emotional framing around a speaker's words as they transcribe. Resisting that temptation preserves the speaker's own voice as the primary authority on their own story, exactly as it should remain. Where context genuinely is needed for a reader to follow along, it belongs clearly separated from the speaker's words entirely.
A note works far better than an intrusion woven directly into the middle of someone else's testimony about their own life. The goal remains constant throughout the whole process: let the person being interviewed keep telling their own story, from beginning to end, uninterrupted. Everything else belongs, quietly, to whoever actually lived it.