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John Molloy, an Irish restorative sculptor meets an Italian sociologist Bernadette Basagni while working on a contemporary-art project in the Alpine city of I_. As he falls in love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view - when his mother, Sandra, while one night praying alone at a country grotto, has a holy vision that leads to his family''s ostracisation and disintegration. The disastrous outfall of this has resonated unchecked through his life. The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth is a novel told in two parts, a decade apart: the first is told in fragments or ''blinks'' that lead John to Bologna and Bernadette; the second opens with a letter from home asking him to pray for the speedy death of an dying friend, which sets in motion a day-long odyssey through the ancient streets and churches of Bologna, where John must confront not just his present and his past but also the bedrock of his psyche.
About the author
Adrian Duncan is an Irish artist and writer who originally trained as a structural engineer. Duncan was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize in 2023, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in 2023 and 2021, longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize in 2021 and won the John McGahern Book Prize in 2020.
