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Reviews
of An Hour in Paradise Include:
"Fiction,
in its ideal form, is an open system, suggesting without
determining. Religion is at heart a closed system-a ring
of certainty. Bridging those two worlds has been the mission
of generations of writers, but only a few have kept their
footing, their very survival a testament to the dangers
they have passed. These are the perils that Joan Leegant
in turn skirts, bows to and transcends in her arresting
new short-story collection. Her work is, in fact, an enactment
of those perils: a series of chord changes between the secular
and mystical, never quite resolving."-Louis Bayard,
New York Times
"Leegant's slim first collection offers 10 sharply
written stories about Jewish characters both young and old,
secular and Orthodox, as they address questions of faith,
love and change. In "How to Comfort the Sick and Dying,"
a yeshiva student struggling to leave behind his drug-dealing,
womanizing ways is sent by his rabbi to visit a man dying
of AIDS, but guilt about his past and his inability to comfort
the dying man spark a crisis of faith. "Accounting"
is the sad tale of an aging father and a willfully optimistic
mother forced to face yet another betrayal by their handsome,
profligate son: "Cleaning up after Eliot had become
for them not only an act of penitence but an attempt to
correct the balance, an effort to ensure that the world
did not suffer a net loss on account of their son. For every
debit inflicted by him they were obliged to provide, in
the other column, a credit." In "Henny's Wedding,"
it is 1943, and a young bride stumbles through her wedding
ceremony nearly incapacitated by morning sickness. Younger
sister Shirley, far from being embarrassed or ashamed, vows
to make daring choices of her own, and quickly finds herself
in the arms of a charming cad-the groom's brother. The collection's
heartwarming finale, "The Diviners of Desire: A Modern
Fable," describes a different kind of courtship; set
in Jerusalem, it pokes gentle fun at the labors of matchmakers.
Throughout these stories, Leegant reveals herself to be
an empathic, gifted creator of people and worlds. Thought-provoking
and funny, touching and disturbing, this is an auspicious
debut. (Aug.) Forecast: Fans of Allegra Goodman will particularly
enjoy Leegant's stories, which bridge the worlds of secular
and religious Judaism." Publisher's Weekly.
"Most
of the characters in Leegant's debut collection of short
stories are seeking something, though they are not always
able to define what it is. In "The Diviners of Desire,"
two young Americans in Jerusalem find each other with the
help of two types of matchmakers. In "Seekers in the
Holy Land," another American student, intrigued by
the Kabbalists, takes an appropriately mystical journey.
Four sisters have an unusual reconciliation in "The
Lament of the Rabbi's Daughters," while "Accounting"
effectively evokes the hopelessness of parents who have
spent a lifetime covering for their ne'er-do-well son. The
stories are stylistically varied, with some having a fable-like
quality and others favoring a more traditional approach.
Most readers will take away new insights into modern Jewish
life, whether it's in Israel or the United States."
Library Journal
Ten
debut stories explore the challenges and meaning of modern
Judaism. "The Tenth" tells of an aging rabbi who
is forced to confront the circus of modern faith when a
set of Siamese twins helps fill out the required number
for the minyan, while a far from pious rebbe ("But
who was he kidding, pretending to piety when he couldn't
even tell a simple story to a dying man or sit next to a
woman on a bus" without having lewd thoughts?) is assigned
the task of comforting an AIDS patient in "How to Comfort
the Sick and Dying." "The Lament of the Rabbi's
Daughters" follows four young women who explode in
various anti-Jewish directions (ashram, acting, ambiguity)
when they reach adulthood, coming together again only when
the one who has disappeared suddenly resurfaces. A Russian
("Meziovsky") and a Jew have to search long and
hard for common ground of any kind when they find themselves
living as neighbors in an America that is equally forgetting
of both their cultures. And the moral of "The Diviners
of Desire: A Modern Fable" asks what the hybrid of
contemporary culture and Jewish matchmaking does to the
practice of love. Leegant demonstrates talent and flexibility,
hindered perhaps only by her seeming compulsion to stick
to a rigid and ultimately repetitive platform. Her voice
sometimes becomes so secular that the bleed into the comedic
lilt of Jewish rhetoric can seem more imitation than depiction.
Still, this is a wide and varied talent that may need the
longer form to find its direction and boundaries. Here,
the attention is well focused on the unknowableness of a
fading faith: "It was all a mystery. Who knew why they
did anything except in the exact moment of its doing? Once
it was done itwas past, the flash of certainty vanished;
any attempt afterward to explain was a pale guess, nostalgia."
One definitely to follow." Kirkus
Reviews
"Fresh,
compassionate and lucid....Fans of Allegra Goodman, Nathan
Englander, even the magical exuberance of Jonathan Safran
Foer will greet this collection warmly."-Miami Herald
"Provocative
and memorable stories, suffused with Jewish lore and wisdom....Leegant's
characters are unforgettable."-The Forward
"Leegant
is a gifted storyteller, blessed with the insight and wisdom
to highlight moments that change and define whole lives."-Jill
McCorkle
"This
collection is a dream of a read, its lovable characters
drawn with wit and warmth."-Elinor Lipman
Reading
Group Discussion Guide:
1.
Several of the stories suggest possible visitations by characters
who fall outside the bounds of ordinary human experience,
such as the mysterious conjoined twins in "The Tenth,"
and the sister Miri in "The Lament of the Rabbi's Daughters."
Do you think such visitations definitely occurred, or are
the stories open-ended on this question? How do the meanings
of these stories change depending on how the reader answers
the preceding question?
2.
In "How to Comfort the Sick and Dying," why does
Reuven go back to the hospital at the very end? What has
happened to him while he was sitting by the expressway?
Who might the drunks be, especially the one who hovers closest
to him? And what is the role of the italicized sayings sprinkled
throughout the story-what voice or wisdom do those sayings
reflect?
3.
Several of the stories turn on relationships between strangers
or cordial (or not so cordial) neighbors: Reuven and Mr.
Ash in "How to Comfort the Sick and Dying," Boaz
Deri and Rachel Locke in "The Seventh Year," Koenigsman
and Mezivosky in "Mezivosky." Consider how each
of these relationships works in each story. Who is helping
whom, and how? What might these stories be suggesting about
the transformative power of such relationships?
4.
Mothers and their grown daughters appear in "Lucky
in Love" and "Henny's Wedding." How are those
mother-daughter relationships portrayed in each of the stories?
A mother and adult son are portrayed in "Accounting,"
filtered through the lens of the father. How do the mothers
in each of these stories come across? How do they compare
to the fathers in these stories?
5.
Why is the last story titled "a modern fable"
("The Diviners of Desire: A Modern Fable")? How
is it like a fable versus a straight fiction? What are the
elements that make it more fable-like?
6.
Speaking of story titles, what are the multiple layers of
meaning of the title "Accounting" in that story?
What about "Lucky in Love"-were those characters
lucky or not?
7.
Several of the stories feature storytelling within the story:
the bizarre tales Reuven makes up in "How to Comfort
the Sick and Dying," and Blanche's stories in "Lucky
in Love" about what Solly did on the day each of Blanche's
children were born. How do these bits of storytelling function
in each piece of fiction-what do they accomplish in terms
of illuminating character, mood, tone? What do they suggest
about the role of storytelling in relationships?
8.
At the end of "Seekers in the Holy Land," the
main character, Neal, is left standing, head bowed, holding
a wooden bowl for donations. What has happened to him, and
why? Consider how the longing to experience the divine runs
through other stories in the collection ("The Tenth,"
"Lament of the Rabbi's Daughters"). What are all
these stories suggesting about this longing-and about the
possibility of it being satisfied?
9.
In "The Seventh Year," Boaz tells his friend Chaim
not to be so hard on himself for leaving the early State
of Israel and adds, "Believe me, Chaim, you didn't
miss anything by leaving." Elsewhere, Boaz recalls
his adult son, upon spending a year in Australia, observing
that with a computer, a modem, and a phone, he could be
living anywhere. Later Boaz recalls Chaim saying in 1959
that "it was a delusion to believe in belonging. What
did anyone think they belonged to-a particular piece of
ground, call it a homestead, a village, a country. Hadn't
they learned that lesson already?" What might this
story be saying about the idea of attachment to any one
place, especially for Jews after the Holocaust? What do
the Biblical passages in the story suggest about the meaning
of belonging? Does Boaz "belong" anywhere in particular?
Do any of us?
10.
Several of the stories make some critical-some might even
say harsh-observations about the state of American Jewish
life ("Seekers in the Holy Land," "The Lament
of the Rabbi's Daughters," "The Seventh Year,"
"The Diviners of Desire: A Modern Fable"). What
are these observations? Do you agree with them?
11.
Minor, or secondary, characters often carry more heft than
their simple weight in stories. Consider the roles these
minor characters play in their stories-what they add to
each story in terms of the meaning or themes: Ellie in "The
Tenth"; Noah in "The Seventh Year"; Dov,
the tour guide, in "Seekers in the Holy Land";
Yossi in "The Diviners of Desire: A Modern Fable";
the dog in "Mezivosky."
12.
In "Accounting," why does Solomon, at the end,
"hope that Eliot returned to work in the morning"?
What are Solomon's choices at that point? Likewise, at the
end of "Henny's Wedding," why does Shirley, knowing
her choices, cast her lot with Jack? What do you think of
their choices? Do you agree with the characters' assessments
that it's too late for them to make different choices?
13.
Why do you think Rachel Locke became pregnant by the end
of "The Seventh Year"? Was it chance, or had something
shifted for her or within the story to allow that to happen?
Had Boaz changed in the course of the story? How?
14.
One critic described reading these stories as akin to "watching
a procession of modern-day Jewish pilgrims in a medieval
tapestry: seekers captured in the act of seeking."
How does that description fit these stories? What are the
people in these tales seeking?
15.
The book's title comes from the Yiddish proverb, "Even
an hour in paradise is worthwhile." How do you interpret
the title in light of these stories?
Awards:
2004 Hemmingway Awards
Links:
Joan
Leegant
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Author
JOAN LEEGANT has been named the 2003 recipient
of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for her book An
Hour in Paradise (W.W. Norton, 2003) by the Maurice
Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University
of Hartford. Leegant
was raised in Westbury, N.Y. and attended Radcliffe
College, Boston University Law School, and the Vermont
College Masters in Fine Arts program. After practicing
law for several years, she went to Jerusalem for what
was to be a six-month stay. She remained in Jerusalem
for nearly three years, working in a variety of jobs,
studying at the Pardes Institute, and becoming absorbed
by the varieties of Jewish experience that later made
its way into her fiction. She lives outside Boston
with her husband and two sons.