Long before it was overrun with tourists, the Greek island of Hydra was home to peripatetic artist expats whose numbers included Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen—his mistress and muse. The party had been going on for a decade before Judy Scott’s arrival in 1973. Now a TV producer, Scott admits to violating a pledge she made at the time: the one thing Cohen asked was, “Promise you won’t write about us.”
According to her preface for Leonard, Marianne, and Me, shortly before his death, Cohen relented and said OK. What follows is an endearing narrative of bygone days when a college student with a backpack and a modest number of dollars could easily summer in southern Europe. And what could be more exotic yet accessible than Hydra, where the hills are too steep for cars or mopeds, phones were few but the wine plentiful and the 300 expats (among the 3,000 inhabitants) were good company.
In Scott’s account, she was taken under wing by Ihlen and from there, meeting Cohen was only a matter of time. She recounts conversations with the songwriter in great detail as she recalls the idyllic setting of long summer days on a rocky speck on the Mediterranean Sea.
