To Anyone Who Ever Asks

The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse

By: Howard Fishman

Narrated by: Howard Fishman

Shortlisted for the Plutarch Award for best biography

The mysterious true story of Connie Converse—a mid-century New York City songwriter, singer, and composer whose haunting music never found broad recognition—and one writer’s quest to understand her life

This is the mesmerizing story of an enigmatic life. When musician and New Yorker contributor Howard Fishman first heard Connie Converse’s voice on a recording, he was convinced she could not be real. Her recordings were too good not to know, and too out of place for the 1950s to make sense—a singer who seemed to bridge the gap between traditional Americana (country, blues, folk, jazz, and gospel), the Great American Songbook, and the singer-songwriter movement that exploded a decade later with Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.

And then there was the bizarre legend about Connie Converse that had become the prevailing narrative of her life: that in 1974, at the age of fifty, she simply drove off one day and was never heard from again. Could this have been true? Who was Connie Converse, really?

Supported by a dozen years of research, travel to everywhere she lived, and hundreds of extensive interviews, Fishman approaches Converse’s story as both a fan and a journalist, and expertly weaves a narrative of her life and music, and of how it has come to speak to him as both an artist and a person. Ultimately, he places her in the canon as a significant outsider artist, a missing link between a now old-fashioned kind of American music and the reflective, complex, arresting music that transformed the 1960s and music forever.

But this is also a story of deeply secretive New England traditions, of a woman who fiercely strove for independence and success when the odds were against her; a story that includes suicide, mental illness, statistics, siblings, oil paintings, acoustic guitars, cross-country road trips, 1950s Greenwich Village, an America marching into the Cold War, questions about sexuality, and visionary, forward thinking about race, class, and conflict. It’s a story and subject that is by turn hopeful, inspiring, melancholy, and chilling.

©2023 Howard Fishman (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

One of Houston Chronicle's Best Music Books of 2023

One of Publishers Weekly's "7 Books from 2023 You Shouldn't Overlook

One of Pitchfork's "Ten Best Music Books of 2023"

Included in Indianapolis Recorder's Holiday Book Gift Guide

A NEW YORKER Best Book We Read This Week

A New York Public Library Fall 2023 Pick

One of Chicago Tribune’s "52 Books for Summer 2023"

Featured in the Guardian's "Summer Reading: 50 Brilliant Books to Discover"

Publishers Weekly Summer Reads 2023 Staff Pick

Featured in The Boston Globe's "Best New Books for Summer 2023"

“‘To Anyone’ is the grandly researched portrait of a talent who didn’t get her due…a rich paean to [Converse’s music], and to the profound connections that art can form between individuals, even decades apart.”—The Washington Post

“Gripping and searching… Mr. Fishman’s thoughtful and deeply researched book provides a far bolder jolt than any cover version can provide. It may yet help find for Converse what the author proposes—a place at ‘the table of great American artists and thinkers.’”—The Wall Street Journal

“Packed with detective-level details about a Renaissance woman whose work passed through this world all but unnoticed”—The Boston Globe

Fantastic but Author should not narrate

Great writing, research and deep depth of love in Fishman's essential biography of lost genius (but now culturally discovered) poet/songwriter/singer/musician Connie Converse. I'm thrilled to learn about her and hear her work. The author's narration is flat. Still, an essential book.

Fantastic Research

Great writing and fantastic research. Thank you for allowing me to get to know Connie Converse. I enjoyed the author’s narration, as it is evident that he put his heart and soul in this project.

Unforgettable

I got completely and utterly sucked into this book and Connie’s world. I had to pace myself because I didn’t want it to end.
The author did a wonderful job reading this book, truly great. Really allowing the audience to travel on the journey with him. Very soothing voice.
I am so grateful this book was written.
I can’t stop thinking about Connie and all the themes in her life.
I have since bought the paperback and am now re-reading.
The author did a thoughtful investigation into her life, and all the characters, social mores and politics of the time.

Wonderful Book

Fascinating story both because of the subject and the author—her intelligence, talent, and dedication and his interest, admiration, and ability to learn about her and tell her story with interesting technical detail and cultural references.

Sensitive & riveting

I really enjoyed this biography. Connie Converse was such a special artist, and Fishman communicates beautifully what we can know about her life and music from the material she left behind. Truly a special book, a lovely reading by the author, and an open-hearted look into Howard Fishman’s own journey to write it.