JCO Book Club

Displaced Persons: Stories by Joan Leegant is a deeply affecting collection of linked short stories set primarily in post–World War II Europe and in the lives of Jewish refugees resettling in the United States during the late 1940s and 1950s. Through these interconnected narratives, Leegant follows families and individuals rebuilding their lives after the Holocaust - people who carry with them the weight of survival, the ache of memory, and the fragile hope of beginning again in unfamiliar places.

Leegant’s tone is quiet but resonant, marked by compassion, precision, and an unwavering attentiveness to the emotional terrain of displacement. Her characters navigate the uncertainty of refugee camps, the cultural adjustments of immigration, and the complex work of forging new identities while mourning the worlds they left behind. Without sentimentality, she reveals the delicate moments in which healing, connection, or understanding becomes possible.

Joan Leegant, an award-winning author known for her…