Joy Comes in the Morning

“A rare and vibrant portrait of a contemporary rabbi who is Reform, female, and complex. . . . negotiates the balance between the spiritual and the comic.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Deborah Green is a woman of passionate contradictions—a rabbi who craves goodness and surety while wrestling with her own desires and with the sorrow and pain she sees around her. Her life changes when she visits the hospital room of Henry Friedman, an older man who has attempted suicide. His parents were murdered in the Holocaust when he was a child, and all his life he’s struggled with difficult questions. Deborah’s encounter with Henry and his family draws her into a world of tragedy, frailty, love, and, finally, hope.

“Rosen’s touching novel of Jewish manners thoughtfully addresses the question of whether piety can teach us faith.” —The New Yorker

“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.” —The Miami Herald

“Rosen’s radiant novel is a welcoming and satisfying inquiry into matters of inheritance, compassion, faith, and free will.” —Newsday

“Not since E.L. Doctorow’s City of God have we seen such a literary effort to plumb the nature of belief. . . . [Rosen is] irreverent even in the middle of the most reverent of scenes, like a Heller or a Roth complete with sardonic social commentary.” —The New York Times Book Review

“At its core, a love story . . . with suave prose, delightful narrative inventiveness and compelling idea.” —Chicago Tribune