This warm and lyrical semi-autobiographical first novel by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen charts the coming of age of Lawrence Breavman, the only son of a Jewish Montreal family 'Children show scars like medals Lovers use them as secrets to reveal A scar is what happens when the world is made flesh' Lawrence Breavman seeks two things: love and beauty Beginning with the innocent games of delicious misadventure with first love Lisa and the absorbing wanders through Montreal with best friend Krantz, Breavman's tale is a distant echo of 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' - injected with 1960s aesthetics and Cohen's unique poetry As Breavman grows into a young man, the emerging writer continues his quest for beauty and love, finding himself in the arms of Shell and a burgeoning realisation of his own talent for appreciating majesty in the grotesque Semi-autobiographical, the angst and beauty of Cohen's voice deftly channel the painful confusion of the journey into adulthood, and the friendships, wars and lovers that are our guides