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| Joy Comes in the Morning: A Novel | 
| Author: Jonathan Rosen
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 343311
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0312424272
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780312424275
ASIN: 0312424272
Publication Date: August 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Light shelf or reading wear only. No tears or marks in text. We always ship same or next day!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Rosen captures universal quest for understanding in face of sorrow February 3, 2006
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
Jonathan Rosen derives the title and theme of his inspiring novel from the Book of Psalms. It is the promise of hope after despair that animates his elegant "Joy Comes in the Morning." Each of Rosen's characters is suffused with pain: the pain of Holocaust memories, the pain of thwarted dreams, the pain of an unfulfilled life. Each major character wrestles with loss of faith and a dwindling belief in life's possibilities. And, true to the counsel offered in Psalm 30, each struggles to realize that however daunting and long a night's pain can be, a new day dawns with promise.
"Joy Comes in the Morning" adheres to a conventional plot and does not break any new ground stylistically. Its towering strength is how its characters grapple with the timeless problems of existential anguish, search for meaning and rediscovery of purpose. Rosen confidently imbues the three crucial characters of his novel with a universality that binds them to us. Henry Friedman, victimized by a debilitating and humiliating stroke, assiduously plans his own suicide. His skeptical son, Lev, lacks focus and confidence in the wake of a failed relationship and the mental breakdown of his best friend. Both men find comfort in rabbi Deborah Green, whose strength and compassion belie her own crumbling faith.
The interplay between Henry, Lev and Deborah becomes the leaven through which Rosen probes questions of faith, family and love. Each character's humanity includes faults, and Rosen's willingness to permit the three to struggle, without roadmaps or guarantees, is one of the best aspects of his writing. Before his abortive attempt to end his life, Henry, whose wife describes him as a "wounded, loving, mercurial man," writes a final letter to his son. In this deeply moving letter, Henry enjoins his son to "submit" to "things larger than ourselves." These "obligations sustain us," Henry writes, but he is unclear as to what these duties are. Lev, "shy, empathic and self-conscious," sets out to discover what his father's cryptic command entails.
Lev's quest takes him to Deborah, whom he meets as she comforts the comatose Henry in a hospital room. Both Lev and Deborah are recovering from failed relationships; each slowly, irreversibly is beginning to redefine the place of religion and spirituality in their respective lives. It is no accident that they are drawn to each other, despite their glaring surface differences. As a rabbi, Deborah is a risk-taker; her earthy sensuality symbolizes her humanity just as her emotionally-liberating, free-flowing tears counterbalance her astonishing capacity for rational study and intellectual rigor. Ironically, doubts and uncertainties provide the mortar for a lasting relationship between the two.
Although Jonathan Rosen's novel features Jewish characters, it is universally appealing. "Joy Comes in the Morning" captures the fears many of us experience in times of crisis and the terror we may feel when traditional faith-based solutions disappear. It is existential loneliness, the realization that we must come up with our own solutions to bind up emotional wounds, that drives the novel. With sensitivity, humor and faith, Rosen offers us a compelling answer.
Don't Be Surprised If You Can't Wait To Share This Book With Others January 20, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
JOY COMES IN THE MORNING is a novel that I purchased to read on vacation. That was in July of 2005. I had every intention of reading it sooner. The jacket summary seemed interesting. It looked like it would have vivid characters, a lively plot, and I knew its religious undertones would capture my interest, but it stayed on my shelf for all that time. It was not until a book club I belong to select the title that I actually read it, but when I opened the book and began reading, I had to finish it.
The novel tells the story of a rabbi, Deborah Green and a science writer named Lev Friedman. Deborah is a hospital chaplain who visits a patient, Lev's father Henry who has had a stroke which occurred while planning his suicide. Deborah is an interesting mix of personalities. She's somewhat unpredictable, rather independent though not always confident, and would probably characterize herself as spiritual rather than religious. She was born Jewish but not raised in the most Jewish of homes, and discovered her faith while searching for what was missing in her own life, something not unlike many of her contemporaries. She meets Lev and the initial meeting is strained at best. Eventually the two begin a relationship. In what could be a somewhat trite and predictable story, the lives of the two characters enfold and we see the ways in which these two quirky yet sincere people come together and form a strong bond with one another.
The spiritual aspect of the book is probably what separates it from other love stories. Rosen is very knowledgeable about the Jewish faith and he paints a wonderful picture of the varieties of ways Jewish faith is practiced and Jewish life is lived, yet while the book is about Jewish characters, so much of what he has to say is universal. I've seem Catholic versions of Deborah and Lev, sincere people searching for answers and struggling with faith. I've also seen evangelical examples, Univesalist/Unitarian examples, and I'm willing to bet there are similar examples in all religious traditions. His precision as well as his ability to engage a large audience can only be praised. Anyone in ministry will recognize Deborah. I've read more than my share of books with priests, rabbis, ministers, and pastors as main characters and in most cases authors have to rely on cliches in order to make the characters seem real. In Deborah we see a dedicated religious leader who is also one hundred percent human which is not something easy to create in fiction.
A few days ago I was in a small bookstore where Jonathan Rosen spoke a few months ago. I saw the book and commented to the bookseller how much I loved the book and wished I heard him speak. He told me I was not the only one who enjoyed it. Many customers who read the book loved it and returned to buy more copies as gifts for friends. So read this book and enjoy it, but be prepared, you may enjoy it so much you can't wait to give someone else a copy.
 Contemporty novel disappointing August 10, 2005
6 out of 19 found this review helpful
I found this to be yet another boring contemporary novel. It ranks right along with Aloft and The Corrections as yuppie-esque and uninteresting. There was nothing about any of the characters that caused me to care about them at all. Deborah, the rabbi, seemed irresponsible in how she approached her faith. I'm sorry I spent the money to download from audible. (The reader drove me nuts. Her voice is absolutely annoying.).
 Joy, Tempered June 11, 2005
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
No doubt Jonathan Rosen has given us an entertaining read: one that combines a good love story with a solid education in Judaism. There are characters we like, admire, care about, including Rachel, a young, single, attractive rabbi; Lev Friedman, a thirtyish science writer searching for Truth in the margins between science and religion; his father Henry, in declining health, masterfully described ("three tiny strokes . . . carr[ied] away clarity the way persistent ants carry away a loaf of bread one crumb at a time."); and Lev's childhood friend Neal, who has suffered a psychotic break and now lives through the horror of paranoid schizophrenia.
Rosen makes us wonder about what will happen next to these and other characters as they struggle--with or without religion--to order their worlds. Lev, through his connection with Deborah, convincingly rediscovers his faith and its importance in keeping the chain of generations unbroken, even while his belief in God remains tenuous. Deborah, despite her ministrations to the sick and other fulfillments of her rabbinical duties, convincingly undergoes a crisis of faith.
But not everything in this novel is convincing. Nearly all of Book Four (the novel, like the Torah, is divided into five "books") hinges on a ridiculous premise. In order not to give away the story, suffice it to say that Lev makes a decision that more than strains credibility, for no discernible reason. The reader is unwilling to suspend disbelief that far and politely skims over this lengthy section to await the resumption of the real action. One more major disappointment, alas, awaits the reader.
Deborah, out of a badly misguided sense of chivalry, perhaps, gives Neal her home address, in case he wants to talk of spiritual matters. Such excessive trust constitutes an inappropriate breach of professional boundaries with even a sane congregant and Deborah is smart enough to know this. (The basic plot line can easily have been preserved by having Neal visit Deborah at her office rather than her home.)
Although Rosen is to be commended for his good intentions in depicting a character with schizophrenia, he has inadvertently perpetuated a negative stereotype about the mentally ill by having Neal engage in a violent act. Further, Neal's first symptoms seem to appear when he is 29, whereas in fact this generally occurs in males between the ages of 17 and 21.
Further, Rosen struggles with point of view. The Latin American fiction writers (and Faulkner) introduced readers to the shifting point of view, wherein the reader will see the story through the eyes of different characters. But where Faulkner, Garcia Marquez, et al. have point of view shifting in an orderly fashion (e.g., different viewpoint in every chapter), Rosen's narrator shifts unpredictably, often within a single paragraph, which interrupts the narrative flow.
We do forge ahead, however, and things end happily for Lev and Deborah. We learn a great deal about Judaism and its traditions. (The story of Henry's prayer shawl, steeped in history, is excellent.) Despite some reservations, Joy Comes in the Morning makes for a satisfying read.
Joy Comes in the Reading April 20, 2005
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful page-turner. The reader is privy to the inner thoughts of a woman rabbi. She struggles in her religious and personal lives especially facing the difficulty of being authentic to herself while having to perform for a congregation.
We also get very real depictions of end-of-life issues, aging parents, mental illness, all while being held together with a plot that propels the book forward briskly.
Rosen has succeeded in describing and developing the inner life of each one of his characters.
Note that there is much specific reference to Jewish liturgy in the novel as two of the characters significantly struggle with its meaning and power. Though I am familliar with Jewish liturgy and was refreshed with this kind of commentary-in-a-novel, my hunch is that people not familliar with Jewish liturgy will also find it compelling because it isn't forced. The spiritual struggles the characters are facing are real and their reference to and dialog with the liturgy is authentic given who they are.
I couldn't put it down.
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