Leonard Cohen

<p>Leonard Cohen has aimed high: to be all Jewish heroes at once. Like Jacob, he struggled with angels. Like David, he sang psalms and seduced women. Like Abraham, he moved from place to place and remained a stranger everywhere. </p><p>But he never ceased doing what he did best: stepping into avalanches and reviving our hearts. From Montreal and New York to the Greek island of Hydra, Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall follows the singer’s cosmopolitan life and examines his perpetual dialogues with God, with himself, and with hotel rooms.</p><p>After twenty years of research, Christophe Lebold, who spent time with the poet in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art. Gracefully blending biography and essay, he interrogates the mission the singer had set out for himself: to show us that darkness is just the flip side of light.</p><p><br></p><p>'The first edition of my book was published in French in late 2013 to good reviews and few readers. </p><p>Then came 2014. Leonard tells me that if we must meet, it should be soon. He tells me why. A few months later, I am on a plane to Los Angeles.</p><p>From the first minute, we spoke like old friends, sometimes until late at night. Although he was not well, he let me watch him live for a little. We said things to each other that I can’t repeat. It is not that they are secret; they are just very delicate. Like butterflies or hummingbirds. To repeat them would destroy them.</p><p>We met again in Los Angeles two months later (he seemed in much better shape). We spent a last afternoon together; we hung out; we had a laugh; smoked a cigarette. And it was time to go.</p><p>We stayed in touch. We were now friends. In his emails, he always talked about his health as an amusing detail, a little whim of the body. Two weeks before his death, I got a last, humorous, loving email warning me that the “body ferociously insists on gravitational rights.” A little nod at my theme of the fall of men and angels. And then, he left. It broke my heart, of course, but that’s what hearts are for.'</p>