Joan Leegant
Reviews
WHEREVER YOU GO
”Leegant is a masterful weaver whose deft storytelling brings her diverse cast of conflicted characters and fraught themes into a powerful emotional and spiritual whole.”- Miami Herald. Read more.
“Finally, a novel about Israel by an American Jew that’s written well and without sentimentality... There have been many important novels in English about Israel; Leegant’s is certainly among them." - The Forward. Read more.
“Leegant has taken this phenomenon of religious and political fanaticism...tempered it with more balanced perspectives and turned it all into a finely wrought story that raises issues while it keeps a reader turning the pages.”
- Chicago Jewish Star. Read here.
“Leegant is a talented writer with a sharp eye for detail...and a knack for drawing characters that engage our interest and empathy. Her descriptions of settings and mores in Manhattan, Jerusalem and the West Bank...[are] pitch perfect.” -- Moment Magazine. Read here.
“Wherever You Go” follows [Leegant’s] acclaimed short story collection [which] garnered positive critical attention and won the prestigious Winship/PEN New England Book Award as well as the Wallant Book Award. Wherever You Go deserves comparable recognition.” --The Jewish Reader. Read here.
“Chekhov famously advised that it is not the job of the novelist to solve problems, only to present them correctly. Joan Leegant's remarkable and affecting novel, at once lucid and lyrical, deftly illuminates the darker confusions of contemporary Jewish life in Israel with a warm heart and a cold eye. Not since the warring Zuckerman brothers in Philip Roth's "The CounterLife" have the exigencies of settler politics and secular desires been so cogently addressed in a work of fiction. Who says the novel has lost its relevance? This one should be required reading.”
Jonathan Wilson, author of
“A Palestine Affair”
READERS RESPOND
“I just finished your brilliant novel. Each sentence is beautiful. The characters are compelling and your precise observations, your wisdom and your humor illuminate every page. Congratulations on creating such an outstanding work.”
Aryeh Lev Stollman, author of “The Illuminated Soul”
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Advance praise for
WHEREVER YOU GO
“Leegant knows how to write a good story...I found myself choked up at the book’s end. This is a novel that will make you both think and feel.” - Cleveland Jewish News. Read here.
"Intriguing...Leegant tells the stories of three very different Americans in Israel [whose] lives collide dramatically. -- JT News, The Voice of Jewish Washington. Read here.
“Gone are the novels where Israel sweeps everyone off their feet into the golden Jerusalem sunset. Leegant’s work is of an entirely different kind of Israel, an unexpected answer.” -- Intermountain Jewish News. Read here.
Interviews