In this moving new novel, award-winning Irish writer Adrian Duncan explores love and grief while finding their resonance in works of art

AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 'An original voice' Colm Tóibín 'Duncan brings a new way of seeing' Irish Times 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.

"Revelatory ... A deliberative and delicate reading experience" - Guardian

"Uncanny, strange and exquisite" - Financial Times

"Makes you remember why you read" - Sunday Post

"My favourite Irish novel" - Irish Times, Books of the Year 2025