This warm & lyrical semi-autobiographical first novel by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen charts the coming of age of Lawrence Breavman the only son of a Jewish Montreal family Children show scars like medals Lovers use them as secrets to reveal A scar is what happens when the world is made flesh' Lawrence Breavman seeks two things love & beauty Beginning with the innocent games of delicious misadventure with first love Lisa & the absorbing wanders through Montreal with best friend Krantz Breavman's tale is a distant echo of Catcher in the Rye' & Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'
- injected with 1960s aesthetics & Cohen's unique poetry As Breavman grows into a young man the emerging writer continues his quest for beauty & love finding himself in the arms of Shell & a burgeoning realisation of his own talent for appreciating majesty in the grotesque Semi-autobiographical the angst & beauty of Cohen's voice deftly channel the painful confusion of the journey into adulthood & the friendships wars & lovers that are our guides