An Author Talk and Book Signing by Joan Leegant / Award-Winning Short Story Collection Displaced Persons

Monday, September 16, 1:00 - 2:30pm at Falmouth Jewish Congregation

Blanche & Joel D. Seifer Community Center, 7 Hatchville Road, East Falmouth / Accessible to all, with ample parking

General Admission $5.  Advance reservations are required. Accessible to all with ample parking.

Advance reservations are required. Click here to reserve your spot: https://www.falmouthjewish.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=21684&action=edit

Displaced Persons: Winner of the New American Fiction Prize

Half the stories in DISPLACED PERSONS also won these individual prizes:

  • Winner of two Moment Magazine Fiction Prizes in different years
  • Winner of the Nelligan Prize from Colorado Review
  • Distinguished Story, Best American Short Stories anthology
  • Special Mention, Pushcart Prize anthology
  • Runner-up, Bellevue Literary Review Fiction Prize

Falmouth Jewish Congregation invites you to an author talk by Joan Leegant, who will read from and sign copies of her award-winning short story collection "Displaced Persons" on Monday, September 16 at 1pm. Advance reservations are required and the fee for general admission is $5. Reserve your spot at FJC's website or call the office to arrange mailing a check.

The Hebrew month of Elul is a time for reflection, reckoning and returning to our best selves. FJC is honored to host acclaimed author Loan Leegant, whose writings grapples with the big themes of life. Set half in Israel and half in the States, the stories in this prize-winning collection explore the experience of exile, belonging, and what it means to call a place home. A visiting professor from Boston forms an unlikely bond with an Israeli born in Iraq. Two teenage tourists are startled out of their naiveté in a restaurant in Jerusalem’s Old City. A gifted yeshiva student spiraling into mental illness takes refuge in the poetry of Walt Whitman. An aged widower returns after sixty years to the Bronx neighborhood of his youth to make amends with a first love he abandoned to go to prison. Shimmering with insight and compassion, DISPLACED PERSONS is a profound, exquisite collection that illuminates pivotal moments of transition, longing, and hope.

Come hear these stories, enjoy refreshments and purchase a book that Ms. Leegant will sign.

Joan Leegant's story collection, Displaced Persons, won the New American Fiction Prize. Joan's first collection, An Hour in Paradise, won the PEN/New England Book Award and the Wallant Award, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. She is also the author of a novel, Wherever You Go, named a "Significant Jewish Book" by the Union of Reform Judaism.

REVIEWS of Displaced Persons

"Breathtaking...characters so fully and compassionately drawn it's hard to remember they exist only in a story." NY Journal of Books

“Deeply affecting... gorgeous tales of wandering Jews.” Hadassah

"A page-turning collection with vivid characters whose loves, fears, and experiences will be relatable to readers." Jewish Book Council

"Leegant's talent for dialogue, swift characterization of complex human lives, and the many resentments and allegiances that tangle a family’s dynamics are on wonderful display.” Kirkus

"A treasure of expertly crafted dramas that probe the eternal themes of belonging and the quest for meaningful relationships." Jewish Journal