Broken Hallelujah

At seventy-eight, decades after his contemporaries have either died or turned into nostalgia acts, Leonard Cohen is as popular as he's ever been, with a chart-topping new album and songs like "Hallelujah" gracing blockbuster movie soundtracks. To understand the reasons behind Cohen's unlikely career surge is to understand what makes him one of the more intriguing artists of our time, a powerful mixture of spirituality, desire, compassion, and humor. Granted access to Cohen's private papers, Liel Leibovitz delivers a portrait that is as psychologically astute as it is philosophically attuned, a look not only at the inner man but also at the environments that shaped him, from the rock scene of New York in the 1960s to the remote Zen monastery where Cohen spent years later in life. Cohen, Leibovitz argues, succeeded by staying true to his singular prophetic vision, a vision millions around the world find profoundly true.