In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love

Luzzi, Joseph

ISBN 10: 1504611535 ISBN 13: 9781504611534

Publisher: Blackstone Pub, 2015

Synopsis

A scholar and writer, finding himself a widower and first-time father at the same moment, turns to Dante's "The Divine Comedy" for solace, using this epic poem to learn how to resurrect his life and revealing how the power of art provides strength in thedarkest moments.

About this title

Review:

‘Powerful and indispensable, Joseph Luzzi unites emotion and ideas in a work that defies categorization, except for the category marked "brilliant." If every academic wrote like this, the humanities would be prospering’ Gary Shteyngart

‘‘In a Dark Wood’ charts Luzzi’s journey through the hell of mourning and the purgatory of recovery, juxtaposing diapers and dating with demons and the damned ... there are many shrewd observations’ Financial Times

‘Like Dante’s epic poem, Luzzi’s narrative moves structurally through the stages of the Underworld, from Hell into Paradise ... Luzzi honestly grapples with profound questions about being a man and father in this very literary and very personal work’ Publishers Weekly

‘Joseph Luzzi lived through something terrible, and has made something beautiful. ‘In a Dark Wood’ is a memoir of love and loss; but more than that, it is a powerful testimony to the consolation – even salvation – that an engagement with great literature can supply’ Rebecca Mead, author of ‘My Life in Middlemarch’

‘Reads hell in a new light’ Vanity Fair

From the Back Cover:

When you lose your whole world in a moment, where do you turn?

On a cold November morning, Joseph Luzzi, a Dante scholar and professor at Bard College, found himself racing to the hospital--his wife, Katherine, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, had been in a horrible car accident. In one terrible instant, Luzzi became both a widower and a first-time father.

In the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy, Luzzi relied on the support of his Italian immigrant family, returning to his childhood home to grieve and care for his infant daughter. But it wasn't until he turned to The Divine Comedy--a poem he had devoted his life to studying and teaching--that he learned how to resurrect his life. Following the same structure as Dante's epic poem, Luzzi is shepherded out of his own "dark wood," passing through the grief-stricken Inferno, the Purgatory of healing, and ultimately stepping into the Paradise of rediscovered love.

Beautifully written, poignant, insightful, and unflinchingly honest, In a Dark Wood is a hybrid of heartrending memoir and a meditation on the power of great art to give us strength in our darkest moments. Drawing us into hell and back, it is Dante's journey, Joseph Luzzi's, and our very own.

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackstone Pub
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1504611535
• ISBN 13: 9781504611534
• Binding: Audio CD