So Long, Marianne: A Love Story — includes rare material by Leonard Cohen
As any Leonard Cohen fan knows, “So Long, Marianne” is one of his best songs, and it is about a real person. Cohen met Marianne Ihlen (then Marianne Jensen) in 1960 on the Greek island of Hydra, where her husband had abandoned her and her infant son for another woman. “The coming together of Marianne and Leonard was like a slow waltz,” writes Hesthamar. Ultimately, Cohen invited both mother and son to live with him back in Montreal. She accepted and became one of his literary muses. But this is also Marianne’s story, from her youth in Oslo, her marriage, her life on Hydra and with Cohen in Montreal. Later, she visited the restless Cohen when he was living at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, only to be told by him that his bohemian world was no place for a young mother. Hesthamar reports that Marianne moved back to Norway in the early 1970s to follow her own path. A quirky and unusual addition to the Cohen files, with previously unpublished poems, letters, and photographs. --June Sawyers