In this lyrical debut novel, Leonard Cohen boldly traces the youth and early manhood of Lawrence Breavman, only son of a Jewish Montreal family. For Breavman, life is a quest for beauty and truth, a kaleidoscope of colours and sensations fed through the high-speed projector of youth: the half-understood death of his father; the adult games of love and war, fantasy and pain; his secret experiments with hypnotism; the absorbing wanders through Montreal in half-light with beloved confidant Krantz.