As close as you’ll get to Tom Waits

Innocent When You Dream: Tom Waits: The Collected Interviews, edited by Mac Montandon, Orion Books, €21.90.

Listening to Tom Waits’ music, according to one interviewer, has the ability to make you feel cooler than you actually are. Innocent When You Dream, a selection of the many interviews that Waits has given over the years, sees Mac Montandon take us inside the world of one of America’s most enigmatic songwriters.

Waits’ music is keenly ...