Matters of Vital Interest, Eric Lerner
Matters of Vital Interest, Eric Lerner
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

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

Author: Eric Lerner

Narrator: William Dufris

Unabridged: 7 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 10/16/2018

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Alicia on January 18, 2019

It's hard to know what to say about this book. I love Leonard Cohen's music (who doesn't love "Hallelujah"?) and was such a fan of even his lesser known songs, but I hated reading this book and it honestly made me like Cohen a lot less. The book is not a biography of Cohen, so don't pick it up thinki......more

Goodreads review by M. on September 15, 2018

[URL not allowed] ...Long ago we jumped onto the spiritual path because we couldn’t stand our moods. We embraced the belief that if we achieved some version of enlightenment we’d attain brand-new selves, retrofitted with a peace of mind that our factory-equipped selves-at-birth......more

Goodreads review by ar on May 16, 2019

This is the second time I am finishing a book featuring Leonard Cohen, Sasaki Roshi, and Zen. It is the second time I am writing a review of such a book with tears in my eyes. This trifecta of topics is consistently moving. It is is a book about friends, and has furthered my suspicion that friendshi......more

Goodreads review by Betty-Lou on March 28, 2021

If you love Leonard Cohen you’ll love this book. Five stars and ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️......more

Goodreads review by Jesús on January 01, 2022

El 21 de octubre de 2016 se editaba el CD número catorce en la discografía del maestro Leonard Cohen, recuerdo que estuve como era algo habitual enganchado a este disco durante muchos días. Lo que no esperaba era que sería oficialmente su último álbum. “You want it darker” fue un trabajo grabado cas......more


Quotes

"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

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