Originally published in her collection Other People’s Lives in 1975, Johanna Kaplan’s beautifully written stories have retained all their depth, surprise, and humor, their paradoxically scathing and compassionate insight into character and behavior. At once precisely specific to a particular period, place, and milieu—New York in the decades after World War II, among Jews who have themselves fled Hitler’s Europe or who live among refugee relatives or neighbors—Kaplan’s stories nonetheless feel universal. They are animated by smart, uneasy, and sometimes cantankerous heroines whose experiences and voices both capture the peculiarity of youth and bring to life the passage of history. From the story of Miriam, home from school with the measles, to that of Louise Weil, who comes from a family that fled Vienna for the Dominican Republic, these characters are fierce, tender, and funny. With pitch-perfect dialogue, a depth of insight and feeling, and an extraordinary control of language, Loss of Memory is Only Temporary is a timeless collection of the finest work from one of the twentieth-century’s distinctive talents.