by Rod Dreher
First published 2017
Rod Dreher returns to his childhood home in Starhill, Louisiana after his sister's death and the success of his memoir The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. He expects to find community but instead discovers deepened family fractures. Depression consumes him, followed by a stress-related autoimmune disease that threatens his health. Doctors warn that without inner peace, he will destroy himself physically. In a bookstore, Dreher encounters The Divine Comedy and recognizes his own condition in Dante's opening lines about being lost in a dark wood. Over the following months, the medieval poem becomes his guide out of despair. Dreher shows how Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise provided a practical framework for understanding his mistakes and changing his life. The book offers concrete wisdom for readers facing depression, family alienation, faith crises, or feelings of exile that mark human existence.
Genres: literary-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, family-drama, christian-living
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, personal-transformation
Setting: Starhill, Louisiana
Period: 21st-century
320 pages · Paperback · Regan Arts.
Content warnings: depression