Jean Stein brought the world to her Upper West Side apartment, then transformed her guests’ party anecdotes into stirring oral histories of the American dream. Annick Weber chronicles the life of of New York’s great storytellers.

Jean Stein brought the world to her Upper West Side apartment, then transformed her guests’ party anecdotes into stirring oral histories of the American dream. <i>Annick Weber</i> chronicles the life of of New York’s great storytellers.

The first thing that many people noticed about Jean Stein was the tape recorder. Though clunky and somewhat old-fashioned-looking, it served her well on decades’ worth of trips across America, during which she interviewed subjects as varied as the topics she covered. Stein was not an ordinary writer for whom a notepad ...