TO ANYONE WHO EVER ASKS

In-depth biography of an obscure midcentury American musician who disappeared in 1974.

Early on in his debut book, New Yorker contributor Fishman, a musician himself, memorably describes his first encounter with Connie Converse (b. 1924), when he heard a recording at a party. “Contextually, I couldn’t place the song,” he writes. “It possessed the openhearted, melodic feel of an old Carter family recording, but there was also some gentle acoustic guitar fingerpicking…and harmonic movement….The traditional elements seemed so finely stitched together, with such a sophisticated sensibility, that the whole sounded absolutely original—modern, even. The song swallowed me. The party froze. The room disappeared.” This was the beginning of an evangelical obsession to learn everything about Converse. Over the years, Fishman wrote a play about her and performed her songs in concert, and he spent more than a decade researching and writing this book. The text’s power derives as much from the writer’s obsession as from Converse’s music. He compares her to a host of luminaries, including Bob Dylan, Dinah Shore, Hank Williams, Emily Dickinson, and Jack Kerouac. It’s astonishing how much he hears in her and how far he has been willing to go to learn more, whether tracking down folks in their 90s who might have experienced a performance or visiting places where her family lived decades ago. Fishman writes about tapes recorded in her New York kitchen—at a time when it wasn’t easy or common to do so—and in other unofficial venues. She never released a record or performed for a paying audience yet somehow made a morning TV appearance with Walter Cronkite. She later quit making music and vanished. Because so little is known about this private woman, Fishman is forced to engage in speculation about her influences, thoughts, and motivations, but his enthusiasm and diligence are infectious.

Through the obsession of such dedicated fans as Fishman, Connie Converse will find a larger audience.