In a Dark Wood

A “heartbreaking, heartrending, heart-stopping” memoir of a literature professor’s personal journey to hell and back (Vanity Fair).

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. 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.

“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 Our Country Friends

“Achingly beautiful.” —Entertainment Weekly

“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