Bono reflects on his 40-year marriage to Ali Hewson

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

Bono’s new memoir, “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” isn’t just about his time and travels with U2. It’s about love.

“I also wrote the book to explain to my family what I was doing with their life because it was they who permissioned me to be away with U2 or lobbying Congress,” the singer told the Sunday Times Magazine. “Ali gave me the chance and covered for me at home. So I’m not writing a rock’n’roll memoir, [or] an activist’s memoir, I’m not just writing a sojourner’s memoir, I’m trying to write a love letter to my wife.”

Bono and wife Ali Hewson wed in 1982. He counts her as one of his closest friends.

That’s actually how the pair met, as childhood school chums. Bono calls the woman he shares four children with “incredible.”

“She’s not just a mystery to me, by the way. She’s a mystery to her daughters, to her sons,” he said. “I mean, we’re all trying to get to know her. She’s endlessly fascinating. She’s … full of mischief.”

Not that it’s all been a bead of roses.

According to Bono, the couple has weathered some tough times.

“It’s not like our love was absent any dark undercurrents or briny water, [but] we got each other through those bits where it was hard to see where we were,” he said. “Ali calls it ‘the work of love’. I wish she wouldn’t use the word ‘work’ because I have a feeling there’s an adjective, ‘hard’, that’s inferred.”

“Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story” is out Tuesday.

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