IN 1973, LEONARD COHEN was on the Greek island of Hydra with his partner, Suzanne Elrod, and their newborn son. The poet and novelist had found fame as a singer-songwriter in the late 1960s, casting a brooding shadow over the Summer of Love. By now, though, he was depressed; almost 40, unhappy in quiet domesticity and in the midst of a creative malaise. “I feel like I want to shut up,” he told an interviewer.
Across the Mediterranean, an Arab coalition, led by Egypt and
