One winter, in a secluded Alpine city, Irish sculptor John
Molloy meets Bernadette, an enigmatic Italian sociologist. As John falls in
love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view, the disastrous
fallout of which has reverberated unchecked through his life.
Years later, a letter from home arrives, asking him to pray for the speedy
death of an ailing friend. Over a day-long odyssey through the ancient streets
and churches of Bologna, John is forced to confront his present, his past and
the bedrock of his psyche. A delicately crafted novel of two halves, a decade
apart,
The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth is a masterful
excavation of human desires, inhibitions and the patterns of habit to which we
unwittingly fall prey.