AudioBonoBook—By Kelly

Is it just me, or does the spine of Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story kinda pop?

AudioBonoBook

A Review Of Surrender In General But Mostly The Audiobook

Kelly Eddington

Only Bono could write a 576 page memoir that leaves his readers wishing for a super-deluxe edition with 576 more pages.

I’m fortunate to be able to paint all day. Painting puts me into a semi-meditative state, but it can get lonely in there. Audiobooks are an art form and a godsend. Over the years I’ve listened to hundreds of them, including War And Peace (I like to tackle long Russian novels in the winter). The reader’s tone and characterization made that massive novel less daunting than if I’d read it myself, and I’m convinced that a reader can make or break an audiobook.

For example, earlier this year I tried to listen to a book that was supposed to be sexy. The reader was a woman, and while women are reliably excellent narrators, they have to be able to speak convincingly as male characters. This one turned the brooding male protagonist into a shrill Neil Patrick Harris, and I couldn’t abide it. Similarly, the male reader of A Prayer For Owen Meany made Owen sound like an evil baby Jay Leno. Unbearable!

Enter Bono, owner of The Voice I’ve Loved Since I Was 14. My anticipation level for Surrender effectively quadrupled when I learned that an audiobook was in the works. While most of my U2 friends vowed to read the print version before listening to the audiobook (which for many was the first one they’d ever purchased), I downloaded Surrender during the wee hours of the morning when it was released.

Under the cover of darkness and under actual covers, I listened to the first few chapters via my AirPods. Longtime fans have all but memorized Bono’s origin story, but what a pleasure it was to listen to this definitive version, newly embroidered with unknown details, along with—omg you guys!—occasional sound effects and reworked song snippets. I would have been more than happy with a bare bones, novice-level reading. I took a break after the first hour to tweet that none of the audiobooks I’ve listened to have had the production values of Surrender. Not even close. Scott Sherratt and company set out to make the Sgt. Pepper’s of audiobooks, and they succeeded.

Bono’s voice is charming and velvety, with remnants of his still-kind-of-there Dublin accent shining through. “Balm” is pronounced as “bam,” and “thanks” is pronounced as “tanks” (sometimes). He must have enjoyed the recording process; it’s easy to imagine him gesturing, smiling, and essentially performing for the book’s producers and engineers.

Pooj and I begin each morning looking outside, and she seems to like it when I whisper about what’s going on in the woods. She has a little freckle on her eye that is harmless but we’re supposed to watch.

I prefer long audiobooks, and Surrender clocks in at a highly respectable 21.5 hours (roughly one-third of War & Peace). Listening to it in bed is the ultimate way to take it in, but Bono also kept me company as I did chores around the house or sat with my cat Pooj and watched a family of deer graze on fallen acorns. He cheerfully faded into the background when he was interrupted by my husband Jeff. “No no, talk to him, I understand.” 

Surrender is not a true tear-jerker, although I challenge fans to hold them back at least a few times. While it was tempting to devour this audiobook over the course of a handful of days, I paced myself. The relentless momentum of this man’s life—even when good things are happening—is enough to wear out spectators who do little more than sit still and push pigments around with a brush all day.

Last weekend I suffered a rough bout of insomnia that began at 1:30 a.m. Not wanting to disturb Jeff with my tossing and turning, I retreated to the couch and listened to Bono describe over two decades of his activism. Bono’s work on behalf of those less fortunate is awe-inspiring, of course, of course, but I began working on Achtoon Baby just as his campaigning shifted into high gear. Looking for material for my cartoons, I paid unusually close attention to him during these years, and I remember everything about them. Advance reviews warned me that this section of the book was a bit of a slog, and I hoped he would talk me to sleep, but congratulations, Bono, you helped me stay awake until sunrise. 

When Bono appears on radio shows or reads poetry for U2-X Radio or some charitable cause or other, fans say things like, “I swear I could listen to that man read the phone book." Well, you’re gonna get your wish with the activism section! Is it too long? I think so, but I understand his need to convince naysayers that he is the real deal in this arena. 

While these chapters in the print version of Surrender might be, let’s say, skimmable, the audiobook is a showcase for Bono’s skills as a mimic, and he presents his revolving door of special guest stars with an array of crackerjack vocal impressions. His Bill Clinton is a bit over the top and possibly played for laughs, but everyone else, including his problematic billionaire friends and various questionable politicians, is believable. Bono is absolutely dead-on when speaking as his bandmates, especially Edge, and I swear I could listen to that all damn night. 

(Sidebar: Bono described Edge as “the light in the paint,” and as a painter I will never, ever get over that one.)

Bono made some interesting choices with Surrender. Along with the activism years, his early days are given a leisurely roll-out. His parents Bob and Iris are major players, and he returns to them frequently throughout the book. Many reviewers have said that Bono’s wife Ali is the emotional heart of Surrender, and wow does that man adore her, but PJ and I have whispered amongst ourselves that, at least in this book, Bono’s yearning for Bob’s applause just might equal or even outweigh his affection for his wife.

Our hero bravely describes his 2016 open-heart surgery in chapter one, but his horrific 2014 bike accident and his 2010 back surgery barely merit a mention. All of these were worrisome experiences for his fans, who were kept in the dark as the U2 camp circled the wagons. I assumed Bono would touch on these health scares, which admittedly are none of our business. But I know if I broke my arm in six places, along with my shoulder blade and eye socket, you guys would never hear the end of it. And I think this says something about Bono’s action-packed life: an accident that nearly killed him didn’t make the editorial cut.

Bono is at his most eloquent when describing the creative process of writing and recording music and the magic that is a U2 concert, but he discusses only a handful of specific songs or the band’s 2,024 gigs. He doesn’t talk about The Claw, the Popmart lemon malfunction, or what it was like to sing The Joshua Tree in its entirety three decades after its release, to name a few examples. 

Acknowledging that U2 came close to breaking up numerous times, Bono hints at incidents of fallout with Larry, Adam, and Edge, but he does not get into specifics. I was expecting more band talk in general and more anecdotes about Ali and their children, but he’s clearly protective of his loved ones’ privacy. They have their own stories to tell (my kingdom for memoirs by all of them). Plus most of the band’s history was already covered in 2006’s U2 By U2, but that book is—gasp!—sixteen years old and screaming for an update. 

Having said that, Adam’s addiction journey was given special care here. Bono claimed that upon reading an early draft of Surrender, Adam thought he came across as a bit of a “caricature.” Whatever Bono did to turn that around worked wonders—his portrait of Adam was crafted with tenderness and admiration.

The last hour of the audiobook shines a light on Bono’s home life and his increasing need for slow, quiet moments. I was dealing with laundry and changing bed sheets as I listened to the Ali-centric “Landlady” chapter. Throughout the book, he describes her as a loving but ultimately enigmatic presence in his life, even after forty years of marriage. That is how I imagined her before the book, and that is how I continue to view her. The section where Bono wakes up and finds comfort in the sound of his wife’s breathing is deeply moving, but when he illuminates her sleeping face with his phone, I stopped what I was doing and gazed into the middle distance. Every woman deserves that level of adoration.

This emotional gut-punch was followed by the final chapter, “Breathe,” where the conversational tone of the book shifted into an unexpected poetry slam. “Breathe” is a rocket launch countdown to Bono’s own birth. It literally brought me to my knees, and I looked outside at the woods behind our house with Pooj. Even though it’s still technically mid-autumn, once the trees lose most of their leaves, I refer to the season as Psychological Winter. 

I live in the heart of America’s flyover country. Mom likes to tell the story of taking Infant Me outdoors for the first time. I saw and followed an airplane across the sky with my eyes. To this day, I notice planes and think about those tubes of people thousands of feet above my head. I wonder if some of them are looking down at my little piece of the world. I wish them well and hope they have a safe flight and a good day wherever they’re headed. I like to think this is something Bono might do.

I gazed up at the sliver of sky visible between my house and the forest and spotted a glimmering speck of a plane way up there. Meanwhile Bono read Surrender’s short list of credits with now-very-familiar amiability over an uncredited and remarkable new version of “40.” I watched the plane cross the sky from east to west until it was out of view. The song faded into silence.

Not pictured: tiny plane.

Every reader is acquainted with that lonesome moment when you finish a good book, and you close it and hold it in your hands and look at the cover, sad that it’s over but in awe of the writer’s accomplishment. Audiobooks don’t have covers, but if anyone can conjure Bono’s face out of thin air, it’s me. I braced myself for the low-fi, old man voice that closes every book on Audible, saying, “Audible hopes you have enjoyed this program.” Except that didn’t happen. Instead, after a moment of silence, Bono returned for five more seconds, addressing the reader softly. And please stop reading this if you don’t want me to spoil his lovely little surprise, but he said:

“Hey.

Are you still there?

It’s incredible that we’re here, right?”

I found myself answering his questions with a quiet “hey” and “yes,” and a tear of joy.