I first became familiar with Leonard Cohen by reading his poetry back in college. Later, I grooved on his smoky voice while hanging out in the homes of various English professors while they were on sabbaticals (official house sitter for the department was just one of my many truly pathetic jobs over the years). Like most people with any semblance of a soul, I remember being awestruck by his knight-errant language, of his trying to find beauty in personal disillusionment and the devastating fractures of history. Didn't realize for a quite some time that he wrote longer books before turning to poetry, haunting song and much later, painting.
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When I finally picked up Beautiful Losers at a street sale it knocked me loose from the numbing bureaucratic slipstream of working in D.C. I couldn't describe it for people, how it sucked me away into a inexplicable trance for days. You either got the "Blue Duke" and his dreamy, free-form style or you didn't.
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Hey, it may not be a crime or mystery novel but since when has reliving the anguish of heartache not been a crime?
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Hallelujah, indeed.