In a post on Lit Hub, Francesca Giacco explains how a fictionalized Leonard Cohen ended up as a character in his novel Six Days in Rome. “I’d like to say what drew me to Cohen was complex or hard to define,” Giacco says. “It was neither—he simply seemed like my kind of guy, the type of man who would pique my interest. Charismatic, challenging, quietly brilliant, openly selfish. But more than that curiosity or attraction, I could see him, or parts of him, becoming useful to me, the story I was starting to tell, and the people within it.”
Acknowledging that all characters are based in part on real people, Giacco says he began to see Cohen the same way he would consider an interesting person he met at a party. “He started to become real to me—in a new way, as a new person,” he says. “Simply put, I took what I wanted and left the rest—a practice Cohen, given the songs he wrote about women throughout his life, would no doubt recognize.”
The version created by Giacco was both similar to and different from the real Cohen. Giacco’s character was Catholic, while Cohen was Jewish. Both swam naked in hotel pools while on tour. “Public figures are ultimately unknowable—maybe his fame and ubiquity made it easier for me to mold him into the shape I dreamt up,” Giacco writes. “I gave myself enough room to play, too. I asked questions and wrote him into the answers.”
Giacco imagined how his character would react if interrupted during a concert. He asked what if Cohen and his lover Marianne had stayed together to build a family. “But I was careful never to know Cohen too well, never to get so close that I lost that initial spark of potential and flexibility,” he says. “I didn’t read authorized biographies or listen to deep cuts. It wasn’t about facts, but what felt right. As long as he stayed elusive enough, I could build from him, make something new.”
