DARK LABYRINTH

A historical novel addresses the life of Galileo, a journey fleshed out here with all the intrigue and high stakes of a pivotal era.

Because Galileo’s life is so well known, a plot summary seems almost superfluous. Galileo (1564-1642), who lived in the duchy of Tuscany, is probably the most famous figure of the scientific revolution that gave the world Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Giordano Bruno, and other giants. Galileo is also notorious for recanting his belief in heliocentrism, so the climax of the book and his long house arrest are never in doubt (There is no evidence, by the way, that he ever muttered about Earth: “And yet it moves”). On the other side is the reviled Inquisition that threatens hellfire and, often, earthly fire, as Bruno’s fate attests. To further complicate things, this is the time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and the papacy feels under pressure to be even more doctrinally rigid than the Protestant sects. None of this bodes well, and readers will see the train wreck coming that Galileo cannot, though he has his fears. This novel is part of the Mentoris Project, which focuses on eminent Italians and Italian Americans. Myers has a good sense of drama here even if his prose is sometimes over-the-top (“A nauseated-looking sun hung dejectedly in the meager daylight”). He gives a real sense of Galileo’s excitement and his understandable arrogance: Here is a genius beset not just by hidebound intellectual inferiors, but malicious ones at that. Galileo does try to keep his arrogance in check (stupid he is not), and the Roman Catholic Church is actually tolerant of the new cosmological ideas—as long as they are broached as hypotheticals. A painful part concerns the daughters whom Galileo consigns to a convent early on (a decision for which he never forgives himself). The devotion that his daughter Celeste shows him will break readers’ hearts. Readers will also find themselves wanting to know more about this celebrated figure and the world that he helped bring into being—the world that they live in today.

A gripping story about a genius grappling with a turbulent new world.