SINÉAD O’CONNOR

Memorializing a singer through her words.

O’Connor is in exceptional company in Melville House’s Last Interview series, joining a list that includes Martin Luther King Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Marilyn Monroe, as well as musicians Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Prince, to name just a few. Her inclusion signals her cultural significance, not only as an artist but as an outspoken activist and spiritual seeker. O’Connor, who died last year at age 56, is best known for her 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U,” written by Prince. She may be equally well known for offending devout Catholics by ripping in half a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live and calling him “the real enemy” in protest of the church’s history of child abuse, especially in her native Ireland. O’Connor touches on all of the above in the nine interviews included here, which span from 1986 to 2021, but only a few bracketed editorial insertions fill in the gaps. This book is not for those interested in the particulars of O’Connor’s life story; rather, this collection, like the other books in the series, aims to capture the artist as she presented herself to journalists and media figures at various stages of her life and career. Some information, naturally, gets repeated; some trains of thought get developed over time. As Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh shares in her charming introduction, O’Connor “was a pretty normal person, I think, though she’d been accused of strangeness, of craziness.”

A reclusive star’s normalcy shines through, as do her street smarts, candor, and sense of humor.