Bono’s memoirs will be released on November 1st of this year. On Monday (September 19) the US magazine “The New Yorker” printed an excerpt from “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story”. In the text, the U2 frontman recaps the death of his mother: In 1974, Iris Hewson collapsed at her father’s funeral due to a brain aneurysm and died a few days later in hospital. As the preprint reads, little was said in the family afterward about what had happened: “We were three Irish men and we avoided the pain that we knew would come when we thought of her and about her spoke,” says the musician.
Bono lost his mother when he was fourteen
In the excerpt, Bono describes the commotion at his grandfather’s funeral after his mother collapsed at the grave at the age of 48: “I see my father carrying my mother through the crowd in his arms, like a white snooker ball that is a colorful triangle jumbled up. He rushes to take her to the hospital,” he recalls in translated words. He continues, “‘Iris passed out. Iris fainted.’ The voices of my aunts and cousins waft through the leaves like a breeze. ‘She’ll be fine, she’s just passed out.'”
Bono continued: “Even though it’s grandpa’s funeral and even though Iris passed out, we’re kids, cousins, running around and laughing. Until Ruth, my mother’s younger sister, bursts through the door. ‘Iris is dying. She had a stroke.’” He himself maintained composure: “Everyone crowds around her. Iris is one of eight from #8: five girls and three boys. They cry, wail, struggle to stand. Someone notices I’m here too. I’m fourteen and strangely calm. I tell my mother’s sisters and brothers that everything will be fine.”
“Her humor was as black as her dark locks”
He also describes the last encounter with his mother in an impressive manner: “Three days later, Norman and I are taken to the hospital to say goodbye. She’s alive, but barely… Ruth is standing outside the hospital room, crying with my father, whose eyes have even less life in them than my mother’s. I enter the room at war with the universe, but Iris looks peaceful. It’s hard to believe that a big part of her is already gone.”
Bono writes that while he has “few memories” of his mother, her uproar shaped his childhood: “Her humor was as black as her dark locks.” The 62-year-old attributes his desire to become a rock star to the hole in his heart left by his mother. As an angry teenager, he turned to music to deal with his grief. Numerous U2 songs refer to his mother’s death – including “I Will Follow”, “Tomorrow”, “Out of Control”, “Mofo” and “Iris (Hold Me Close)”.