Joy Passanante, Through a Long Absence
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Through a Long Absence

Words from My Father's Wars

In her book Through a Long Absence, Joy ­Passanante AB ’69, writes about her father, Bart ­Passanante, AB ’35, MD ’39, and his experiences as a medic during World War II. Intrigued by a time that her parents rarely spoke about, ­Passanante uses her father’s journals and his extensive correspondence with his wife to recreate his experiences as a child bootlegger, a surgeon on the fields in Normandy and a soldier in Paris after the liberation.