I generally read about ten short story compilations a year, and even though I've been doing that for quite a long time now, I've found very few story collections as consistently good as Joan Leegant's Displaced Persons.
The stories, half of which take place in Israel and half in the United States, share a common theme hinted at by the book's title. Each features one or more "displaced persons" struggling to fit into a world that bears little resemblance to the one left behind. Some characters manage the transition with limited difficulty, some take years even to begin feeling comfortable with the change, and others never manage the job at all. Regardless, Leegant's people have more in common than not.
The seven stories set in Israel are presented in "Part One: The East." "The East" includes stories about those who left and the people they left behind, such as "The Baghdadi," in which an Iraqi Jew moves to Israel against the wishes of his father, or the story about a young Israeli who, against the wishes of his mother, wants to make a fresh start by moving to Germany. There are stories about "displaced" Americans naive enough to get themselves into dangerous situations, such as the one about two sixteen-year-old girls whose youthful rebelliousness places them in life-altering danger they will be lucky to escape. And there are stories about others who come to Israel expecting to go back home soon only to find that they have finally found in Israel the real home they've been yearning for.
The seven stories in "Part Two: The West" are about a different kind of displacement, one in which American Jewish families are more often than not coming apart at the seams. These stories are more about generational and religious displacement than about the physical kind. Some stories tell of children who no longer feel connected to the old ways of their immigrant parents, others of disillusioned elders who have lost the faith much to the dismay of their children. There are stories here about redemption and the kind of wisdom that comes only with age and experience. They are stories about people trying to figure out who they are and where they fit into the world.
Displaced Persons offers, I think, an especially timely glimpse into Jewish life both in Israel and in the United States, and what it is like to be caught between those two very different worlds during the turbulent times we live in today. Joan Leegant has packed so much into these twenty-something-page stories that I will remember them for a long time to come.
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| Joan Leegant jacket photo |
Strikes a chord with me. My children have emigrated and fitting in means letting some stuff go. Second generation even more so. Compromise is key.
ReplyDeleteI've never had that experience, so I can only imagine the mixed emotions involved. Difficult as it is to see children move far from home to make new lives for themselves, a parent's emotional response has to be further compounded by watching longtime cultural customs slowly change over time, too. Some of the stories in Displaced Persons clearly illustrate all that.
DeleteAn interesting book and very timely. I have had a bit of the displacement experience living all my life in one state NY and then moving to Florida. It's nothing of course like moving to a new country but moving anyplace new can be a bit of a shock.
ReplyDeleteEven though I've lived in other countries for extended periods of time, I never experienced a feeling of displacement because I knew it was always temporary even if the move were for several years at a time. It was all one big adventure kind of a feeling; I can't imagine the real thing.
DeleteThese stories sound so good...and I'm not a huge fan of short stories. But this is a collection I think I would really like.
ReplyDeleteI think this collection is destined to remain one of my favorites for a long time to come. I can only keep my favorite books around anymore because of space constraints, but this one is going on the shelves somewhere for sure.
DeleteI don't think I finish that many short story books in a year. I end up jumping from book to book. I have tried to be be more disciplined about that but it has not worked so far.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of this book sounds very good, but since it is just now coming out, it will probably be awhile before I run into a copy.
I tend to finish them and only jump from one collection to another when the collection is one of multiple authors rather than a single writer. I guess it's because I'm curious about how the collection was constructed as a whole and whether or not the stories have something in common that makes some kind of bigger point than a single story makes. That's one of the reasons this one impressed me as so much.
DeleteAnother reason is that most collections of a dozen or so stories are pretty inconsistent when it comes to quality. I find myself nowadays rating each story individually between one and five stars, and then averaging them to give myself some kind of general rating of the book. Seldom does one average more than 3.25 to 3.75 for me. This one was comfortably over four, and that's rare.
Those are all good points for finishing a collection, Sam. I am going to try to do that with the Alice Munro book I recently started, and also the Lorrie Bird book I have been reading recently.
DeleteI'll look forward to hearing what you think of the Munro book. I don't know Lorrie Bird, so I'll be curious about that one, too.
DeleteThere are surely a lot of displaced people - it seems a timely collection. And sadly Oct. 7 seems to have heightened hate on both sides. What an awful change that has taken place.
ReplyDeleteWhat you say reminds me of a quote from one of the stories: "The whole world was carrying their belongings on their backs and walking in lines." (from the story titled "Displaced Persons") I find that image to be very powerful.
DeleteI've never been able to get into short stories. I'm not sure why - I just prefer longer, more in-depth stories. I'm glad you've found some that you enjoy.
ReplyDeleteShort stories have a whole different vibe to me than what I get from reading novels. They are not as in depth, for sure, but the best short story writers have a knack for creating whole, believable worlds or situations in a limited space that fascinates me. It just seems like such a difficult thing to do. My preferred short story length is somewhere around 20-25 pages, I think.
DeleteThis sounds so interesting. The world is changing and displaced persons of all kinds are more and more common. A state of affairs and circumstances which will continue, and I often wonder how I would cope with the geographical, cultural, traditional differences.
ReplyDeleteIt's really unimaginable, isn't it. And yet we take it for granted that others should be able to cope with their own massive uprooting. I think you'd like this collection.
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