Inferno

<p><em>Inferno</em> unfolds between 1984 and 1986 primarily in Holyoke Chicopee and Amherst Massachusetts with excursions to Springfield Vermont New York City Hawaii 19th-century France and 12th-century Spain. At its center is Nancey Reese a nurse whose coming-of-age takes her from a state of youthful naïveté through a period of tumultuous growth to the threshold of early maturity. Along the way we learn with her-about her work her friends her romantic entanglements her joys and her frustrations.</p><p></p><p>While grounded in bracingly realistic fiction and rich with atmosphere <em>Inferno</em> also explores more literary and poetic terrain. The narrative is shaped by three shifting narrators-distinct yet interconnected-who appear in various guises interact and evolve. Together they reflect a fragmented but ultimately coherent self suggesting the layered complexity of identity and the challenges inherent in telling one's story.</p><p></p><p>Disrupting the core narrative are science and fantasy chapters that add unexpected texture-complicating and deepening the central arc. What emerges is a cross-genre meditation on selfhood transformation and the porous boundaries between realism and imagination. The novel closes not with certainty but with tension threat and the glimmer of promise.</p>