Joy Comes in the Morning

From the Publisher

"In shimmering prose and with uncommon empathy, Rosen creates a cast of characters plagued by profound spiritual crises.... Not since Saul Bellow has an American novelist created characters so unabashedly determined to unleash their souls, to burst their spirit’s sleep." —Andrew Furman, The Miami Herald

"Rosen's charming yet serious novel—the Jewish equivalent in style, smarts, and topicality to Anna Quindlen's and Kent Haruf's bestselling morality tales——grapples with nothing less than the endless conflicts between human nature and our perception of God, the intellect and the emotions, religion and science, the past and the present....Rosen’s radiant novel is a welcoming and satisfying inquiry into matters of inheritance, compassion, faith, and free will." —Donna Seaman, Newsday

"Rosen...offers a rare and vibrant portrait of a contemporary rabbi who is Reform, female, and complex....What is not predictable is how well the novel itself negotiates the balance between the spiritual and the comic." —Steven G. Kellman, San Francisco Chronicle

"What a pleasure it is to see such a serious and yet playful novel...Not since E.L. Doctorow's City of God have we seen such a literary effort to plumb the nature of belief—in Jewish-American culture, in Talmudic study, in prayer, in sex, in the very soundness of one’s own mind...He's irreverent even in the middle of the most reverent of scenes, like a Heller or a Roth complete with sardonic social commentary. Such moments abound in Joy Comes in the Morning." —Art Winslow, The New York Times Book Review

"Joy Comes in the Morning is, at its core, a love story...with suave prose, delightful narrative inventiveness and compelling ideas...[and] a wonderfully comic turn of events in the novel's s20final third." —Floyd Skloot, Chicago Tribune

"Beautiful...[Joy Comes in the Morning] fills the reader with happiness at the most unexpected moments. Mr. Rosen leads the reader through his character's emotions with old-fashioned assurance, and his dual mastery of sincere religiosity and searing embarrassment promises an explosive future for the family romance." —The New York Sun

Susan Jacoby

The author, whose first novel, Eve's Apple, offered a memorable portrait of a woman with a history of anorexia, somehow avoids allowing the familiarity of his characters to turn them into stereotypes. Deborah, who wraps herself in her grandfather's tallis, or prayer shawl, before praying every morning, may be bossy, but she also has a good heart. One of the first things we learn about her is that she stoops to tie an old man's shoes on Broadway when she sees that he cannot bend over far enough to reach them.
— The Washington Post

Art Winslow

Not since E.L. Doctorow's City of God have we seen such a literary effort to plumb the nature of belief -- in Jewish-American culture, in Talmudic study, in prayer, in sexual relations, in the very soundness of one's own mind. Many of the religious and life motifs that Rosen braided together in The Talmud and the Internet are to be found here in a fictional frame, and perhaps he simply followed the advice of the Talmudic sage Ben Bag Bag, who said ''Turn it and turn it for everything is in it.''
— The New York Times

The New Yorker

In her work as a hospital volunteer, Deborah Green, a Manhattan rabbi, encounters an ailing Holocaust survivor—recovering from a debilitating stroke and a suicide attempt—and his skeptical son. To complicate matters, she is beautiful and single, while the skeptical son is a shy bachelor; the romance causes crises of faith for both, as they negotiate their divergent attitudes toward their religion. As the story moves from wedding to funeral and back again, and Deborah officiates at the momentous changes in other people’s lives, she increasingly finds her own life empty of the things that she has always counselled her congregation to treasure. Served with the merest teaspoon of schmaltz, Rosen’s touching novel of Jewish manners thoughtfully addresses the question of whether piety can teach us faith.

Publishers Weekly

Rarely has the life of a rabbi been examined with as much complexity-and sympathy-as in this second novel by the author of Eve's Apple. Deborah Green is by all accounts a highly capable young woman, adored by her Manhattan congregants, adept at both weddings and funerals. But she can't shake her concern that all good rabbis are, as one of her teachers describes, just "the smoothest fakers around." In her role as a hospital chaplain, she encounters Henry Friedman, a Holocaust survivor who has suffered a stroke and whose diminished abilities have driven him to attempt suicide. This leads her in turn to Henry's son Lev, a science writer-and religious skeptic-who recently fled from his wedding to a non-Jew. Lev feels overshadowed by his ultra-competent brother, Jacob, and by his friend Neal Marcus, whose energetic mind has been derailed by schizophrenia. Lev's developing relationship with Deborah jump-starts his religious practice, but he struggles with the daily life of having a rabbi girlfriend. Deborah, whose secular family has always questioned her choice of occupation, is beset by lingering questions of legitimacy and professional duty. Rosen, a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the New Yorker and author of the popular nonfiction book The Talmud and the Internet, writes with uncommon assurance about contemporary Judaism, whether the subject is Friedman family dynamics or the insecurities, comedies and small pleasures of everyday rabbinic life. Above all, this is a welcoming and intelligent look at Deborah's efforts to weld her many identities-woman, rabbi, Jew-into a cohesive whole. Agent, Sarah Chalfant. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Henry Friedman, the only member of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust, suffers a stroke and fears a second will take away his dignity and independence. Midway through a suicide attempt, he changes his mind but not before injuring himself. At the hospital, Rabbi Deborah Green recites psalms and prayers for Henry's recovery. Though he cannot speak, Henry immediately connects to her and begins to reevaluate his faith, religious and otherwise. Rabbi Green also has an enormous impact on Henry's wife and son Lev. Deborah and Lev, alternately wary of and intrigued with each other, fall in love. These main characters, and a number of minor ones, endure emotional upheaval and soul-searching, coming to terms with their pain, doubts, and fears and learning the value of ritual and tradition. They realize that community binds them to one another even in times of great sadness and tragedy. Filled with realistic, sympathetic characters, Rosen's second novel (after Eve's Apple) is deeply spiritual, genuine, and engaging. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. Lisa Nussbaum, Dauphin Cty. Lib. Syst., Harrisburg, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An elegantly written if slow-paced story about a young female rabbi who suffers a too easily resolved crisis of faith as she ministers to the sick and dying. Second-novelist Rosen (Eve's Apple, 1997; The Talmud and the Internet, 2000; etc.) is a serious explorer of Jewish American life today-the role of faith and the past-but though his efforts are admirable and often germane, they tend to drive his plots more than character does. His protagonist here, Deborah Green, is an attractive young Reform rabbi in New York who conscientiously observes all the Jewish laws. Estranged from her physician sister and her nonobservant mother, Deborah, having found comfort and meaning in her religion after her father died, decided to become a rabbi. Now, she meets Lev Friedman while visiting his father Henry in the hospital. Henry, depressed, haunted by memories of the past-in Europe in 1939, as a six-year-old, he was sent to England and never saw his family again-and in poor health, attempted suicide, though a massive stroke intervened. Lev is a science writer who abandoned his bride on her wedding day and now worries that he's incapable of commitment. Lev and Deborah are drawn to each other and cautiously begin meeting regularly as Deborah encourages Lev to reclaim his Jewish roots. As Henry slowly begins to recover, Lev and Deborah set up house together. But when a deeply distressed elderly and pious woman, who nearly dies, confesses to Deborah that instead of seeing her beloved dead husband she experienced a complete void, Deborah falters. She disappears, leaving a worried Lev, who pitches in for the absent Deborah to protect her job-he even conducts part of a funeral service. Deborah, though, isn'teasily vanquished by doubt. Again, the ideas take top billing, with the plot a distant also-ran. Agency: Wylie Agency