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she runs away for a bit, and Lev
ends up leading a funeral serv-
ice, impersonating a rabbi.
Joy In the Morning is told
from the point of view of an all-
knowing narrator, who sees into
souls of all, revealing their inner
lives. It has much in common
with the 19th-century novels
that Rosen favors, books about
families with strong characters
where things happen, and where
people ask big questions.
As an influence, he cites
George Eliot's novel Adam Bede,
featuring a female preacher who
has a powerful presence. He
says that writing a
book with religious
themes is "almost like
writing about sex at
the dawn of the mod-
ern period, what had
only been written
about by indirection."
Before his stroke,
Henry Friedman is
careful and refined,
the kind of man who
wouldn't venture out-
side without a tie.
After, he suffers many
indignities. Other
characters include
Lev's childhood friend
Neal, whose mental illness overtakes
him, and Reuben, Deborah's former
Orthodox boyfriend.
When she runs into him again and
admits that she can't pray and is feel-
ing estranged from God, he responds,
"Jews aren't expected to feel God's
presence. That's why there's the
Torah."
Rosen's characters are compelling
and knowable. He says that he creates
characters and then tries to simply
remain in their presence — they are
beings that cease to be like him or like
anyone else, yet are mysteriously
fueled by his own experience and
knowledge.
"I wanted my characters to have a
soul in that real sense," he says.
The author of the novel Eve's Apple
and the nonfiction The Talmud and
the Internet, Rosen speaks thoughtfully
and eloquently, with care, favoring
long answers that give him a chance to
wrestle with ideas before deciding
what to reveal; he is, as he admits, a
wandering Jew in conversation.
The author is, in fact, married to a
Conservative rabbi, although he insists
that his wife is not the rabbi in his
novel. "But I'd be lying if I told you
that being married to a rabbi hasn't
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Jonathan Rosen: "Caring
about what happens to imagi-
nary people reminds you at
some level how much you
should care about the actual
people around you.
had a huge effect on my life," he says.
He's also a bird watcher and the son
of a father who escaped from Europe.
And his own father penned a short
story, titled "Joy in the Morning."
One of the challenges in writing this
novel, the Manhattan resident
explains, was to put aside his ideas of
what a modern American Jewish novel
ought to be and just write. "You just
have to imagine a world and then
inhabit it."
He adds, "Caring about what hap-
pens to imaginary people reminds you
at some level how much you should
care about the actual people around
you.
Although he has written a novel
about faith and holiness, Rosen, who
is editorial director of Nextbook
(www.nextbook.org — an online gate-
way to Jewish literature, culture and
ideas), admits that those are difficult
subjects to speak briefly about. "The
answers to those questions are a con-
versation."
About tradition in his own life, he
says, "I'm constantly negotiating —
it's a dance with the tradition."
He adds, "To me, it's the dialogue that
matters. The argument itself is a kind of
prayer. To be in dialogue with these
questions is a form of worship."
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