Matters of Vital Interest: A Forty-Year Friendship with Leonard Cohen

by Eric Lerner

Overview

A memoir of the author's decades-long friendship and spiritual journey with the late singer, songwriter, novelist, and poet Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen passed away in late 2016, leaving behind many who cared for and admired him, but perhaps few knew him better than longtime friend Eric Lerner. Lerner, a screenwriter and novelist, first met Cohen at a Zen retreat forty years earlier. Their friendship helped guide each other through life's myriad obstacles, a journey told from a new perspective for the first time.

Funny, revealing, self-aware, and deeply moving, Matters of Vital Interest is an insightful memoir about Lerner's relationship with his friend, whose idiosyncratic style and dignified life was deeply informed by his spiritual practices. Lerner invites readers to step into the room with them and listen in on a lifetime's ongoing dialogue, considerations of matters of vital interest, spiritual, mundane, and profane. In telling their story, Lerner depicts Leonard Cohen as a captivating persona, the likes of which we may never see again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306902703
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	10/16/2018
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	1,095,876
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Over a long career Eric Lerner has written a memoir of his early adventures in Buddhism; edited the off-the-wall journal Zero; was credited as writer and producer on the movies Bird on a Wire, Augustus, and Kiss the Sky; and has written several novels, including Pinkerton's Secret: The Original Manuscript.

Editorial Reviews

07/23/2018
In this affectionate memoir, novelist and screenwriter Lerner (Pinkerton’s Secret) chronicles his friendship with the late singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen. The two first met in 1977, when they were in their 40s, at a Zen retreat in California. For several years they shared a house in California, where they supported each other through divorces and fatherhood (both men favored their daughters over their sons), and through various illnesses and surgeries. Lerner tells of Cohen’s love of performing and the struggles he had with the Sony record company, which refused to publicize his 1988 album, I’m Your Man. As both men aged, they continued to be inspirational forces in each other’s lives, affectionately referring to each other as “Old Boy.” Lerner’s descriptions of Cohen’s last days are moving: in a final email exchange between them, Cohen writes, “I wrote back quickly, desperately, several times, but there was no reply. Our long conversation had finally come to and end.” Lerner’s tender, moving memoir reveals Cohen as a devoted friend and father, a side of him not often seen in public. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Matters of Vital Interest is a portrait of a decades-long friendship, and the vision of Leonard Cohen that emerges from it is much like the persona he invents in his songs—seductive, knowing, hyper-articulate, not always likable but always fascinating. More than a foil, Lerner is the singer's partner in crime, spiritual questing, and, until Leonard Cohen's death, sheer survival. They are brothers, and this is their story, told from the heart."—Anthony DeCurtis, author of Lou Reed: A Life

"A remarkably intimate and insightful portrait of one of the world's greatest songwriters—but more than that, a genuine and moving chronicle of friendship, spiritual aspiration, aging, and love."—Alan Light, author of The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah"

"An affectionate, closely observed memoir.... A sensitive portrait of a sly, charming, complicated man."—Kirkus Reviews

"Lerner's tender, moving memoir reveals Cohen as a devoted friend and father, a side of him not often seen in public."—Publishers Weekly

"This engaging memoir and chronicle of a long friendship offers generous glimpses of the private life of Cohen...fans will devour this book, hoping to find clues about the man behind the legend."—Library Journal

"An entertaining memoir...[and] a poignant account of a friendship and the last days of a remarkable life."—Booklist

"A remarkable for its gritty depiction of both Cohen the hustling, sly, broken survivalist, and Cohen the tender, present, and devoted father."—Tricycle

"[Matters of Vital Interest] is wonderful...There is a lot of beauty in this book, the beauty that exists between two old friends who love and understand one another."—New York Journal of Books

"An amusing yet endearing account...Matters of Vital Interest lifts the veil on an intensely personal artist whose life was refracted-not necessarily mirrored-in his work."—Shepherd Express

"A sensitive, compelling look at how a friendship grows and survives."—Ink19

From the Publisher

2018-06-18
Singer, songwriter, and poet Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) wanted to be remembered above all as a good father.In an affectionate, closely observed memoir, novelist, screenwriter, and film producer Lerner (Pinkerton's Secret, 2008, etc.) recounts a friendship that began in 1977 and lasted until Cohen's death. At the time they met, Cohen "was already intent on keeping his private life as far removed from the limelight of his career as possible." In fact, his career was not flourishing: He wanted to be acclaimed as a serious poet or literary novelist but instead performed as a singer to support himself, his ex-wife, and two children. Lerner describes Cohen as "an ethereal being" whose "vital energy resided above his shoulders." The men shared a two-family house for many years, and despite decades of difference in their ages, became confidants. "Somehow," Lerner writes, "he determined that I could understand him without explanation." And Lerner felt equally understood: "he knew I was heading into the same difficult waters he was treading, fighting the riptide and the undertow." Those difficult waters included professional obstacles (Cohen "tried to hold his life together with chewing gum and Scotch tape"), disappointments in love, and a deep spiritual quest. They both sought guidance from Japanese-born Rinzai Zen master Joshu Sasaki Roshi, engaging in ritualized practices and periods of meditation known as sesshin. A shared desire to understand their true natures, plumb the depths of their souls, and find enlightenment recurred in their ongoing conversations, which Lerner presents verbatim. They also discussed Cohen's frustrated efforts to further his career; only after his manager embezzled all his money did he launch a tour that met with wild enthusiasm. More than performing, though, Lerner says that for Cohen, fatherhood "defined his life." When he was with his children (who lived mostly with their mother), he didn't try "to entertain, amuse, or distract" but instead "to enchant. That's the kind of father Leonard was." More than once, he told Lerner "on his gravestone they should just put: Father."A sensitive portrait of a sly, charming, complicated man.

Kirkus Reviews

Novelist, screenwriter, and producer Eric Lerner offers this deeply personal remembrance of his forty-year friendship with Leonard Cohen. William Dufris’s narration is affectionate, understanding, intelligent, and, above all, completely believable. Lerner and Cohen met at a Buddhist retreat, where the two began a friendship that lasted until Cohen’s death in 2016. Speaking with honesty and sensitivity, Dufris illuminates Lerner’s portrait of the singer-songwriter-poet, allowing listeners to see this music icon as a loving family man who would rather be remembered as a good father, a man on a spiritual quest, and a loyal friend than as a public figure. Dufris does wonderful work, particularly when delivering the two men's conversations, which are faithfully reproduced by Lerner in this clear-eyed look at friendship and life’s complexities. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

Novelist, screenwriter, and producer Eric Lerner offers this deeply personal remembrance of his forty-year friendship with Leonard Cohen. William Dufris’s narration is affectionate, understanding, intelligent, and, above all, completely believable. Lerner and Cohen met at a Buddhist retreat, where the two began a friendship that lasted until Cohen’s death in 2016. Speaking with honesty and sensitivity, Dufris illuminates Lerner’s portrait of the singer-songwriter-poet, allowing listeners to see this music icon as a loving family man who would rather be remembered as a good father, a man on a spiritual quest, and a loyal friend than as a public figure. Dufris does wonderful work, particularly when delivering the two men's conversations, which are faithfully reproduced by Lerner in this clear-eyed look at friendship and life’s complexities. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile