News Release

Mathematician by day, novelist by night

Concordia Professor Abraham Boyarsky has authored a fifth novel, 'Inverse Images,' about the Hasidic Jewish community

Book Announcement

Concordia University

Abraham Boyarsky, Concordia University

image: Mathematics professor Abraham Boyarsky has authored a fifth novel, "Inverse Images." view more 

Credit: Photo by Concordia University

Montreal, March 30, 2011 – Joseph Rosenblatt is no ordinary Montreal Hasidic Jew. He's also the creation of an unlikely author: Abraham Boyarsky, a professor in Concordia's Department of Mathematics and Statistics, who is a mathematician by day and a novelist by night.

Rosenblatt, the protagonist of Boyarsky's latest novel, Inverse Images (Mosaic Press 2011), is a university physics professor who has rocked a few adventures in the outside world. Through a backwards lens (the Inverse Images of the title) Rosenblatt looks over the decisions he's made in the past that have led him to a deeper understanding of himself.

He's roared off to Quebec City on the back of a Harley, his arms wrapped tightly around Geneviève, a French-Canadian separatist whose left arm is tattooed with numbers, "in solidarity with the murdered six million Jews."

He handles his own when a couple of young Hasidic men attack him, kicking one in the groin, and moving "with fury" toward his second attacker, "lunging his closed fist, spear like, into the boy's chest." And when one of his sons passes away, Rosenblatt slips into a health club, "wearing a sweatshirt, running shoes and a black beret" (presumably to cover his yarmulke), to snoop for clues.

Rosenblatt is conflicted about the two worlds he lives in. He is at once rejected by his Hasidic community, and rejects his own family life. He sees his wife as "a slave serving his goals." When she suddenly starts having life-threatening seizures, he blames her: "If only you could have tolerated a bit of stress, none of this would have happened." And, he admits, it's been "many years" since he has seen her "as a full and intelligent partner in his life."

The fictional professor dallies in a dangerous correspondence with a blond, tango-loving student, who is suddenly infatuated with her much older and entirely unathletic teacher. Rosenblatt also jets off to Israel to stoke the faded coals of an old fling. He tucks away his dual life as discretely as he stuffs his prayer shawl into his laptop case.

"Joseph Rosenblatt is a man of science living in an Orthodox Jewish community," Boyarsky explains. "He thrives in this duality until confronted with the education of his children. Confronted by extremists, both in the community and within his own family, he realizes the hopelessness of the quest, most forcefully during the climactic scene where he is beaten by his son."

Rosenblatt's creator lives a dual life of his own. A full-time mathematics professor at Concordia, who is heavily involved in Montreal's Hasidic community, Boyarsky also has 13 children and some 30 grandchildren. "We have a custom not to count," he says.

Inverse Images is Boyarsky's fifth novel. He has also penned 26 short stories and authored or co-authored 150 research papers in mathematics.

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To learn more about Boyarsky's writing prowess, read on for a Q&A:

Q: Your novel The Ratcatcher explored Montreal's diversity. And Joseph Rosenblatt is also well-traveled and worldly. Between your commitments to work, family and community, how are you able to explore?

A: I know a lot about life outside the community because I was not at all religious until I was 26-years-old. And as a professor of mathematics, I am always meeting people. It was no problem over the years to live in both worlds at the same time. Duality is an essential part of existence. I'm over 60 but play badminton regularly with people in their '20s. I don't feel any older than my students. I think I can relate to them very well.

Q: Inverse Images shows the strengths of the Hasidic Community, but it also shows some serious faults, notably in the educational system. How does your community react to your novels? Do they ever get you in hot water, like Dr. Rosenblatt?

A: I think very very few of the people in my community read novels. Those that do come from an academic background and know what I'm writing about. For hardliners, my novel would be viewed as very upsetting. But most of them have never had a secular education. For them reading a novel is a waste of time.

Q: Your biggest influences are Kafka, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Isaac Babel. But Inverse Images, feels modern (particularly the youthful voice of Donna, the student Rosenblatt is having a flirtatious email relationship with). Were there any more modern influences for the book?

A: I don't have very much time to read. I have not read modern novels.

Q: Is it true that you mostly write in the summer, at your cottage in the Laurentians?

A: This novel took three summers. I take a lot of notes throughout the year. Most of my ideas come on the Sabbath when I'm not allowed to write. I use my kids as tape recorders for ideas. I'll say, "You remember this word, and you remember this word." It works! I'm gushing with ideas. I'm always scribbling notes on the backs of tickets and things like that. Right now I'm working on two new novels at the same time. I'm making notes and getting ready to write in the summer.

Q: You have a glossary at the end of the novel with Hebrew words. Are non-Jews expected to understand Inverse Images?

A: My intention is to reach a wide audience. I want to show the rich diversity of Hasidic community life. There are benefits to the warmth of a community. Sometimes I think you can't have a rich social existence without a religious connection. What's going to keep you close to your friends, the Super Bowl and vacations?

Q: How do you find the time to write?

A: I've always wanted to be a writer and, thank God, I do have energy. I'm always thinking about my novels and I make time for scribbling. It's not so much the number of hours available. It's how lucky and blessed you are in the little time you do have.

Related link:

Concordia Department of Mathematics and Statistics: www.mathstat.concordia.ca

Media contact:
Sylvain-Jacques Desjardins
Senior advisor, external communications
Concordia University
Phone: 514-848-2424, ext. 5068
Email: s-j.desjardins@concordia.ca
Twitter: http://twitter.com/concordianews
Concordia news: http://now.concordia.ca


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