An Hour in Paradise: Stories

Joan Leegant's collection takes its title from the Yiddish proverb Even an hour in Paradise is worthwhile. In settings from Jerusalem to Queens, from Hollywood's outskirts to Sarasota, Florida, the characters in this mesmerizing debut collection are drawn to the seductions of religion, soldiering on in search of divine and human connection. A former drug dealer turned yeshiva student faces his past with a dying AIDS patient. A disaffected American in the ancient city of Safed ventures into Kabbalist mysticism and gets more than he bargained for. A rabbi whose morning minyan is visited by a pair of Siamese twins considers the possibility that his guests are not mere mortals. An aging Jerusalemite chronicles his country's changes during the biblical year of rest. By turns poignant and comic, unflinching and compassionate--with a dose of fabulist daring--An Hour in Paradise explores the dangers and unforeseen rewards of our most fundamental longings.

Author: Joan Leegant
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 08/17/2004
Pages: 238
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780393325843

Review Citation(s):
Kliatt 11/01/2004 pg. 28
New York Times 12/12/2004 pg. 30

About the Author
Leegant, Joan: - Joan Leegant, author of An Hour in Paradise and Wherever You Go, won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for the best book of Jewish-American fiction and the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts.