Sinéad O'Connor The last interview and other conversations

When Sinead O'Connor died in 2023, many felt that they lost an older sister or younger self or maybe a saint. The Irish singer-songwriter's moral voice was a reliable presence when much of the world was silent about child abuse, mental illness, and many of the isms. This chronologically ordered interview collection plays back that voice, from O'Connor's first interview in 1986, at 19, a year before The Lion and the Cobra, her fame-sparking debut album, to 1990s NME and Rolling Stone features to her final interview on The View in 2021. Readers can hold onto O'Connor's faith in her voice and mission, as she did on her most vulnerable days, while tracing her evolution as an artist, mother, and spiritual seeker. She never regrets her most controversial statements, including tearing a photograph of the pope on SNL to protest sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, expressions of what she "saw to be the truth." A gathering for lifelong and recent fans who need a reminder to turn up the volume of their own conviction.

Memorializing a singer through her words. O'Connor is in exceptional company in Melville House'sLast 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 onSaturday 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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.