This series of interviews was conducted by Joan Simpson Burns to provide material for a study of patterns in American cultural life, published in her book The Awkward Embrace: The Creative Artist & the Institution in America. Mrs. Burns' interest centered on her subjects' family backgrounds and early exposure to the arts as well as on their later contributions to American culture. Her interviewing method, frankly experimental, encourages free association and frequent digressions.

The principals' memoirs are supplemented by conversations with their professional associates.