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How Geraldine Brooks Was Inspired by King David and Leonard Cohen

JL;DR SUMMARY Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks discusses her novel "The Secret Chord," which explores the life of the biblical King David, drawing inspiration from her son's harp playing and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

King DavidMiddle EastPulitzer PrizeMusicArtJournalismLeonard CohenLiteratureGeraldine BrooksThe Secret Chord

Places mentioned

Boston, Massachusetts, United States
"He actually played at my launch at Temple Israel in Boston the night before last."
Iran
"And the first battlefield I ever saw was on the Faw Peninsula in Iraq, where the Iraqis had managed to win a few hundred yards of desert back from the Iranians."
Israel
"Had you been to Israel before researching this book?"

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 62007
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-09-20 05:31:25 UTC
Curated 2025-09-20 08:31:10 UTC