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This article was published 31/10/2020 (2101 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A figure of true international stature, Leonard Cohen lived one of the better documented lives in Canadian arts and letters.

The Montreal-born singer-songwriter and poet, who died four years ago at age 82, has already been the subject of numerous admiring biographies and documentary films.

So what does retired Toronto journalist (and native Winnipegger) Michael Posner add to the record with his book, a compilation of hundreds of interviews, cut, pasted and arranged chronologically, with those who knew Cohen intimately or crossed paths with him?

The answer is detail — amusing, confusing, exasperating, revealing, contradictory, salacious detail that confirms everything we knew about this titan in the tower of song.

Doubly daunting is that this tome, covering Cohen’s “early years,” ends in 1970. He was just 36, with three poetry collections, two novels and his first two albums in the bag.

Posner has committed to two more volumes, of equal length, one assumes. Their publishing dates have yet to be unannounced.

In this first volume, friends, relatives and lovers all attest to Cohen’s charismatic, work-obsessed, ascetic and spiritual nature.

Despite his small size and quiet demeanour, he was always a leader among his peers — class president, life of the party, an alpha male and a ladies’ man almost from the day he was born into the Westmount Jewish upper class. “He was the quintessence of a courteous, considerate person,” says McGill University fraternity brother Joe Nuss. “He was urbane, and his control of the language was beautiful.”

Posner quotes Cohen’s Norwegian muse, Marianne Ihlen: “If you asked me to describe Leonard in four words, I would say: kindness, creativity, sensitivity and honesty.”

Untold Stories should be more properly called an oral history. Posner first used this approach in his 2005 book, The Last Honest Man, about another Montreal Jewish artistic giant, Mordecai Richler. Despite its similarly undercooked quality, the Richler book had more to recommend — full-scale biographies of the scrappy novelist had yet to appear.

This time, however, Posner has to contend with British journalist Sylvia Simmons’ authoritative 2012 Cohen biography, I’m Your Man. Meanwhile, fans will get a better sense of Cohen’s years on the Greek island of Hydra in Nick Broomfield’s 2019 documentary film Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love.

As with his Richler book, Posner has tracked down many famous interviewees — singer Judy Collins, musician Charlie Daniels, former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, among them — but the vast majority are not public figures.

At the back of the book, Posner includes an alphabetical list of his 300-plus subjects and describes their connection to Cohen.

Some of the subjects are quoted a handful of times; others, such Cohen’s old friend Barrie Wexler and the late poet Irving Layton’s ex-wife Aviva, become unofficial guides to Cohen’s life and times.

Eagle-eyed readers will note some absences, for instance both of Cohen’s children, as well as Layton’s son David, whose bitter memoir of his father, 2000’s Motion Sickness, contained a drive-by assassination of Cohen’s slippery character.

Some inclusions are also curious. Posner appears to have interviewed Cohen’s former manager Kelley Lynch, whom the singer successfully sued, claiming she had stolen millions from his personal accounts. 

Mind you, some quotes are from secondary sources, since the subjects are long dead, Cohen among them.

Although the interview excerpts are well-edited for grammar and syntax, much of their content is gratuitous. This book could be reduced by 150 pages without any loss.

Retired Winnipeg journalist Morley Walker has been a Leonard Cohen fan for more than 50 years.