Petrarch had Laura, Poe had Annabel Lee, and Leonard Cohen had Marianne Ihlen, the central subject of Kari Hesthamar's So Long, Marianne. While many muses' identities are confined to their role in the art they sparked, Hesthamar's thoughtful and empathetic biography centers on the woman herself, elevating her from an inspiration to a full-fledged human, interesting for her own life, on her own merits.
Hesthamar, who first delved into this story for Norwegian radio, wisely treats Marianne as her primary focus. It would have been easy to analyze her strictly through the lens of her relationships. Originally, Marianne moved to the Greek isle of Hydra with her husband, Axel Jensen, an accomplished novelist who left her for another woman shortly after the birth of their son. She met Cohen when she was still married, and slowly spun friendship into love. Cohen said, "There wasn't a man who wasn't interested in Marianne, who wasn't interested in approaching that beauty and that generosity."
But Hesthamer also paints Marianne Ihlen--through her early 20s as a new, young mother to the end of her time on Hydra, which she left in her mid-30s--as a blonde, tan beauty with a proclivity for new age psychology and a habit of pulling up her roots. We follow her from Norway to Greece, from Greece to Montreal, and while Hesthamar makes no effort to hide her subject's faults, Marianne is ultimately a likable and beautifully imperfect protagonist. It's the mark of a wonderful biography that we, too, fall in love. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer and bookseller at Flyleaf Books