In a Dark Wood: A Memoir

by Joseph Luzzi

Overview

On a cold November morning, Joseph Luzzi 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 in Rhode Island to mourn and to care for his infant daughter. Adrift and grieving, Luzzi found himself sharing Dante’s dark wood with an intimacy that years of scholarship had never shown him. As Luzzi grapples with his loss and struggles to rebuild the life he had known, he shepherds readers through a universally relatable journey of suffering with wisdom and compassion.

Blending heartrending memoir and meditations on the power of great art to give us strength in our darkest moments, In a Dark Wood is a poignant and surprising affirmation of life and love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062357526
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/14/2016
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	400,439
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Joseph Luzzi holds a doctorate from Yale and teaches at Bard. He is the author of My Two Italies, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and Romantic Europe and the Ghost of Italy, which won the Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies from the Modern Language Association. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Bookforum, and the Times Literary Supplement.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

I The Underworld

Chapter 1 An Hour with the Angels 13

Chapter 2 Consider Tour Seed 49

Chapter 3 Love-40 83

II Mount Purgatory

Chapter 4 Astrid and Anja 117

Chapter 5 The Gears of Justice 149

Chapter 6 Rough Draft 173

III One Thousand and One

Chapter 7 Posthoc7 205

Chapter 8 Fathers and Sons 233

Chapter 9 Open Hours 257

Epilogue 283

Translations and Motes 291

Acknowledgments 295

Editorial Reviews

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, New York Times bestselling author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story

“An engrossing struggle to build a life after enormous personal loss and the luminous power of literature to transform sorrow’s exile into a kind of blessing.” — New York Journal of Books

“A heartfelt memoir…[Luzzi’s] is a quest so universal that we can all fin ourselves in his struggle.” — Christian Science Monitor

“This is not an academic book about Dante. It’s an elegant and moving memoir of one man’s journey through grief and finally back to life.” — Albany Times Union

“Luzzi’s new memoir transforms unthinkable tragedy into literary gold. More than simply a memoir of mourning, In a Dark Wood testifies to the life-giving importance of literature and what it has to teach us.” — BookPage.com

“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

“Heartbreaking. Heartrending. Heart-stopping.” — Vanity Fair

“Luzzi’s story is intensely personal, but holds universal appeal for anyone who has experienced love and loss. As he grasps blindly for routes out of his personal underworld, both he and the reader discover that only a change of mind and heart can open the way to love and fulfillment.” — Booklist

“Luzzi honestly grapples with profound questions about being a man and father in this very literary and very personal work.” — Publishers Weekly

“A forthright chronicle of emergence from darkness.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Heartfelt memoir… [told with] raw and unguarded candor.” — New York Times Book Review

“…achingly beautiful… — Entertainment Weekly

“Luzzi has written a memoir that is at once inspiring and fascinating. Beautifully written, with humor as well as depth, this book is a must for all serious readers.” — Hudson Valley News

“You say you’ve not read The Divine Comedy…. It doesn’t matter. Luzzi writes with the economy and flair of a novelist…[and] makes it all personal when he twines his historical analysis…with his own dark emotional terrain.” — Chronogram

“In his memoir...Luzzi adopts Dante’s journey as his own. He writes about the long, difficult path through the hell of grief in search of healing, [exploring] the power that Dante’s poetry still holds for modern audiences.” — The Thread, MPR News

“Compelling” — Providence Journal

“The book soared when Luzzi used Dante’s words to explain how grief made him feel.” — Salon

From the Publisher

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

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

Luzzi’s new memoir transforms unthinkable tragedy into literary gold. More than simply a memoir of mourning, In a Dark Wood testifies to the life-giving importance of literature and what it has to teach us.

BookPage.com

Luzzi’s story is intensely personal, but holds universal appeal for anyone who has experienced love and loss. As he grasps blindly for routes out of his personal underworld, both he and the reader discover that only a change of mind and heart can open the way to love and fulfillment.

Booklist

An engrossing struggle to build a life after enormous personal loss and the luminous power of literature to transform sorrow’s exile into a kind of blessing.

New York Journal of Books

This is not an academic book about Dante. It’s an elegant and moving memoir of one man’s journey through grief and finally back to life.

Albany Times Union

A heartfelt memoir…[Luzzi’s] is a quest so universal that we can all fin ourselves in his struggle.

Christian Science Monitor

Heartbreaking. Heartrending. Heart-stopping.

Vanity Fair

Compelling

Providence Journal

The book soared when Luzzi used Dante’s words to explain how grief made him feel.

Salon

…achingly beautiful…

Entertainment Weekly

You say you’ve not read The Divine Comedy…. It doesn’t matter. Luzzi writes with the economy and flair of a novelist…[and] makes it all personal when he twines his historical analysis…with his own dark emotional terrain.

Chronogram

Heartfelt memoir… [told with] raw and unguarded candor.

New York Times Book Review

Luzzi has written a memoir that is at once inspiring and fascinating. Beautifully written, with humor as well as depth, this book is a must for all serious readers.

Hudson Valley News

In his memoir...Luzzi adopts Dante’s journey as his own. He writes about the long, difficult path through the hell of grief in search of healing, [exploring] the power that Dante’s poetry still holds for modern audiences.

The Thread

Luzzi’s story is intensely personal, but holds universal appeal for anyone who has experienced love and loss. As he grasps blindly for routes out of his personal underworld, both he and the reader discover that only a change of mind and heart can open the way to love and fulfillment.

Booklist

04/13/2015
Luzzi (My Two Italies), a professor of Italian at Bard College, plunges into a familiar classic he had often taught and studied—Dante’s Divine Comedy—that suddenly took on a heartbreaking new resonance after the death of his young wife. In November 2007, Luzzi was in his late 30s, living in Tivoli, N.Y., with Katherine, who was nine months pregnant. He felt he was finally on his way professionally and personally when tragedy struck. A car accident took Katherine’s life, yet the baby she carried survived; within a few hours Luzzi found himself both a widower and a new father to a daughter, Isabel. In a narrative that would seem contrived coming from someone less immersed in the language of Dante, Luzzi attests that reading the exiled 14th-century Florentine author at this crucial juncture “gave me the language to understand my own profound sense of displacement.” Like Dante’s epic poem, Luzzi’s narrative moves structurally through the stages of the Underworld, from Hell into Paradise; instead of having Virgil as his guide, Luzzi enlisted his family, namely his old-world mother, Yolanda, to care for Isabel. Yolanda’s help was a godsend but also at times got in the way of his emotional connection with his new daughter. Naturally, Katherine serves as his own Beatrice. Luzzi honestly grapples with profound questions about being a man and father in this very literary and very personal work. (May)

Publishers Weekly

2015-02-16
Dante serves as a guide through a landscape of sorrow.In November 2007, Luzzi (Italian/Bard Coll.; My Two Italies, 2014, etc.) faced a cataclysmic change in his life: his wife, eight and a half months pregnant, was killed in a car accident; his daughter, born prematurely, was fighting for her life. As he struggled with grief, guilt, and loneliness, Dante's works, which he had long been teaching, "gave me the language to understand my own profound sense of displacement. More important, they enabled me to connect my anguished state to a work of transcendent beauty." In this frank and engaging memoir, Luzzi demonstrates a deep knowledge of Dante's life and writing, interweaving the poet's experiences with his own. He admits feeling numb after the accident, unsure of his ability to be a father and emotionally detached from his infant daughter. As much as he missed his wife, he yearned to find another love; self-protectively, he buried himself obsessively in teaching and scholarship. Dante suffered similarly, condemned to exile, mourning the death of his beloved Beatrice, and devoting himself obsessively to poetry. Luzzi is not proud of turning over his daughter's care to his selfless 77-year-old mother and sisters, for him "the path of least resistance" that allowed him to return to the classroom and, nearly a year into widowerhood, to begin a relationship. With his competent female relatives willing to raise his daughter, he decided he couldn't face "the drudgery [and] grinding rhythms of focusing exclusively on a child." He had never, he confesses, considered what child care responsibilities he would have had if his wife had lived. When his first relationship ended, he embarked on a desperate search for a companion, meeting women through online dating sites, which was a dispiriting experience. It took years before he found a new love and embraced his role as a father. A forthright chronicle of emergence from darkness.

Kirkus Reviews