Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

For stories of Hydra efcharistó to Michael Pelikanos, Manos Loudaros, Natasha Heidsieck, Katyuli Lloyd, Bill Pownall, Phainie Xydis, George Xydis, Gay Angelis, Vangelis Rafalias, Myrto Liatis, Dimitrios Papacharalampous, Linus Tunstrom, Alice Arkell, Fiona Cameron, Kip Asquith, Mariora Goschen, Sula Goschen and Victoria Lund. I gained insight to the later years from Sam Barclay’s letters to Marianne Ihlen together with essays by various contributors collected by Helle V Goldman in the book When We Were Almost Young . Of George Johnston’s novels I am particularly indebted to Closer to the Sun and Clean Straw for Nothing and also to his biographer Gary Kinnane.

Online I am grateful to Allan Showalter of the now defunct but brilliant Cohencentric and to Jarkko Arjatsalo of the excellent Leonard Cohen Files . The website Hydra Once Upon A Time , run by Yianni and Micky Papapetros, has been inspiring. Kari Hesthamar’s interviews with Marianne Ihlen and Leonard Cohen, which I first heard broadcast on the BBC, have been invaluable, as has Kari’s biography, So Long Marianne . I am grateful to ABC Radio for preserving the Verbatim interviews with Charmian Clift and George Johnston and to the National Library of Australia in Canberra where their papers are held. An essay by Tanya Dalziell and Paul Genoni led me to the archive of Redmond (‘Bim’) Wallis held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand and I recommend their excellent book Half the Perfect World to anyone who wishes to read more about the community on Hydra. I am grateful to Susan A. Perine for her translation from Norwegian of Axel Jensen’s Joachim published in 1964 and held at the Columbia University Archives and to Princeton University Library for papers and photographs from the Gordon Merrick collection. Thank you Jana Krekic for translations from Swedish of works by Goran Tunstrom. I have drawn on the letters of Gregory Corso from the fascinating An Accidental Autobiography , edited by Bill Morgan and constantly checked in with Sylvie Simmons’ outstanding biography of Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man .

Readers of early drafts have all made invaluable contributions. Thank you Cressida Connolly, Damian Barr, Charlie Gilmour, Esther Samson, Sarah Lee and John Sutherland. Romany Gilmour has played a good Marianne while I’ve been writing this book, thank you to her for all the well-timed tea and beans on toast and also to Janina Pedan, Olinka, Gabriel, Joe and Barbounia Gilmour.

I am grateful to Sofka Zinovieff for saving me from Greek language blunders. Clare Conville, Darren Biabowe Barnes, Kate Burton, Paul Loasby, Chris Salmon, Alexandra Pringle, Sarah-Jane Forder, Lauren Whybrow, Ros Ellis, Rachel Wilkie, Allegra Le Fanu. Gardenias and little sandwiches to all of your desks.

As ever, I wouldn’t find space for the words without David Gilmour, my partner in writing as well as in life.

‘Never Be Anyone Else But You’

Lyrics by Baker Knight

Copyright: World excluding Europe: Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Alfred Music Publishing Europe: EMI Unart Catalog Inc/EMI United Partnership Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission of Hal Leonard Europe Ltd.

‘Boy on A Dolphin’

Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster

Copyright: World excluding Europe: Alfred Music Publishing Europe: EMI Robbins Catalog Inc/EMI United Partnership Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission of Hal Leonard Europe Ltd.

The P. B. Shelley poem quoted on p.232 is ‘Fragment. Supposed to be an epithalamium of Francis Ravaillac and Charlotte Cordé.’

Leonard Cohen’s novel Beauty at Close Quarters eventually found publication as The Favourite Game . The goal, then as now, falling short of the reach.

Polly Samson is the author of two short story collections and two previous novels. Her work has been shortlisted for prizes, translated into several languages and has been dramatized on BBC Radio 4. She has written lyrics to four number one albums and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

pollysamson.com

@PollySamson

The Kindness

Perfect Lives

Out of the Picture

Lying in Bed

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First published in Great Britain 2019

Copyright © Polly Samson, 2020

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This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: HB: 978-1-5266-0055-4; TPB: 978-1-5266-0056-1; eBook: 978-1-5266-0057-8

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