Review: Joseph Luzzi - In the Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love

Joseph Luzzi, In A Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me about Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love. New York: HarperCollins, 2015.

 On November 29, 2007 at 9:15am, Professor Luzzi's wife, Katherine Lynn Mester, pulled out of a gas station into oncoming traffic.  The injuries sustained in that horrific accident led to her death a few hours later on the operating table. Miraculously, their daughter, still in the womb at eight and half months old, survived thanks to heroic medical treatment.  

By noon of that day, Professor Luzzi became a first time father and a widower. 

He was numb, shocked, and his grief was long and hard.  Luzzi's mother, sisters, and brother stepped in to take care of daughter Isabel.  After a brief leave of absence, Luzzi returned to teaching at Bard College.  He and Isabel moved to the home in which Luzzi grew up in Rhode Island.  He commuted to Bard, staying long enough each week to fulfill his teaching responsibilities.

Luzzi offers a deeply personal recounting of his grief.  The structure of the journey is formed by Dante's Commedia. 

Luzzi's engagement and connection with Dante's Commedia and his own journey is masterful.  He shows us how an ancient text can come alive and inform a contemporary life.  Dante himself writes during a time of significant crisis.  He was exiled from his home in Florence, Italy simply because of the changing political tide. He is bereft of his home, friends, and the work he enjoys. While Dante does find suitable employment elsewhere, he can never truly go home.  He has to find "home" somewhere else. 

Luzzi is also working out where his true home is and what his role  as Parent to Isabel shall be.  He candidly explores his family dynamics, pros and cons, his own ambitions, and why he does not immediately become "Father" in the full sense of the word.  It all has to do with him wandering emotionally and intellectually to find his true home. 

Luzzi knew he was incomplete without Katherine.   And, he wanted to love and be married again.  He briefly recounts several failed relationships. In the final chapter, we are introduced to Helena.  She and Luzzi eventually marry. Between his mother and Helena, he has his Beatrice who leads him out of widowhood.  

Luzzi's story is compelling. While introducing us to Dante, his circumstances, friends, and writings, we are also learning about Luzzi's loss, grief, and the crucial role that friends and family play in his recovery.  Luzzi is a blessed man.  He is surrounded by a loving family, colleagues, and friends who choose to stand by him no matter what.  

The majority of Dante translations in the book are Luzzi's.  At the back of the book, Luzzi offers recommendations of translations as well as other books to further explore Dante.  One of the translations I was surprised to see missing is Anthony Esolen's in the Modern Library Edition. But, alas, not everything can be listed in a book such as this.