John Molloy, an Irish restorative sculptor meets an Italian sociologist Bernadette Basagni while working on a contemporary-art project in the Alpine city of I_. As he falls in love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view - when his mother, Sandra, while one night praying alone at a country grotto, has a holy vision that leads to his family's ostracisation and disintegration. The disastrous outfall of this has resonated unchecked through his life.The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth is a novel told in two parts, a decade apart: the first is told in fragments or 'blinks' that lead John to Bologna and Bernadette; the second opens with a letter from home asking him to pray for the speedy death of an dying friend, which sets in motion a day-long odyssey through the ancient streets and churches of Bologna, where John must confront not just his present and his past but also the bedrock of his psyche.