Death Of A Lady’s Man
by Leonard Cohen

Glorious ramblings from grouchy genius

Cohen was already a published author of both poetry and prose before establishing himself as a towering songwriting talent. This reprint of his 1978 volume – pointedly titled, on the heels of 1977’s Spector-produced Death Of A Ladies’ Man – combines both forms seamlessly.

The grand themes – sex, life, death, more sex – are familiar, but Cohen delves into them and takes them to task as few writers can. It’s so sensuous and dirty that you want to swim in it. Almost every line (“fuck the 26 letters of my cowardice”) is arresting, and almost every piece leaps from the raw and human to the mythological to the quotidian and back. Each poem or prose piece is followed by Cohen’s contemporaneous, lyrical notes, which obliquely illuminate, though never fully explain. His mastery of words, even as he dismisses his own attempts to make sense of the largeness of life, is delicious, and even the most debased bits are pleasing. The focus is intense and the truths elusive, but the fluidity of the writing makes it all so engrossing. The index of first lines is poetry in its own right. A pure and profane pleasure.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

ISBN 9780233003009, 216 pages

Reviewed by Sarah Bee
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