Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall

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. 

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.

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.

'The first edition of my book was published in French in late 2013 to good reviews and few readers.

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.

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.

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.

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.'