About this item
It's 1960, and the world teeters on the edge of cultural, political, sexual, and artistic revolution. On the Greek island of Hydra, a proto-commune of poets, painters, and musicians revel in dreams at the feet of their unofficial leaders, the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, troubled queen and king of bohemia. At the center of this circle of misfit artists are the captivating and inscrutable Axel Jensen, his magnetic wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian ingenue poet named Leonard Cohen. When eighteen-year-old Erica stumbles into their world, she's fresh off the boat from London with nothing but a bundle of blank notebooks and a burning desire to leave home in the wake of her mother's death. Among these artists, she will find an unraveling utopia where everything is tested - the nature of art, relationships, and her own innocence.
About the Author
Polly Samson is a writer of fiction and a lyricist, whose words have appeared on four number one albums including Pink Floyd's The Division Bell and David Gilmour's On An Island. She has also worked as a journalist and in publishing, including two years as a columnist for The Sunday Times. Her first novel, Out of the Picture, was shortlisted for the Author's Club Award and many of her stories, including those from her first collection Lying in Bed, have been read on Radio 4. A second collection of short stories, Perfect Lives, was a BBC Book at Bedtime. She has written an introduction to a collection of Daphne du Maurier's earliest stories, The Doll and Other Stories, and has been a judge for the Costa Prize. Her 2015 novel The Kindness was named a Book of the Year by both The Times and The Observer. A Theatre for Dreamers, Samson's Sunday Times bestselling novel about the bohemian island of Hydra during the upheaval of the 1960s, reached number 2 on the Sunday Times bestseller list and was a book of the year in The Times and Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail and Spectator. She has since written the introductions to new editions of Charmian Clift's Peel Me A Lotus and Mermaid Singing. Polly Samson was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.
