The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth

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.

Adrian Duncan is an Irish artist and writer. He is the author of Love Notes from a German Building Site, which won the John McGahern Book Prize, A Sabbatical in Leipzig, which was shortlisted for the Kerry Novel of the Year, and The Geometer Lobachevsky. The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth is his fourth novel.