A story about perception, vulnerability, and the healing power of art. "...Firefly was the nickname for the cluster of searchlights attached to the Huey looking for Danny that night. A rotating mount aimed the beam across an arc twenty to thirty degrees forward and aft, up and down. It blinded everyone. The entire system weighed ninety-nine pounds-more than Emily did at the time. Chiaroscuro. Light versus dark. Caravaggio could have painted the scene. Emily pictured the artist working in his dark studio, illuminating Danny's face by shining light through a hole in the ceiling and projecting the image onto stretched linen. Va bene, li vediamo, he might have said. Yes, we see them, his eyes, how they flicker with fear, like Isaac's eyes flashed when his father, Abraham, tried to kill him. She could see the sixteenth-century Italian crushing luminescent bodies of fireflies, drowning them in white lead, and preparing his canvas with the potion to fix the image in her mind. The image. The incident. The fear." -from Mating Habits of Fireflies by M.C. St.Clair

Artist Emily Rowen experiences the world in a way few can comprehend. She tastes sunlight, hears voices, and sees visions. Even the landscape speaks to her when she returns to Italy in 2006, carrying a special gift for the heir of the estate where she once lived.

Her memories take her back to 1969, the pivotal year of her life in California when she illustrates her traumatic past in a sketchbook. During this time, she meets Danny, a mysterious artist and musician, who believes she's a mystic. She grows to trust him as they search for meaning in an age of assassinations, revolutionary music, and outspoken art. But rollercoaster circumstances lead her to leave the States-and Danny-to study in Italy after he is drafted and doomed to fight in Vietnam. She lives with her collegemates and an anarchist professor on a countess's estate in Umbria where nationwide strikes and political unrest inundate the region during the beginning of Italy's tragic Years of Lead. There she has recurrent dreams of Danny lying face down in the jungle surrounded by the fireflies he loves. Because her greatest fear is losing him, she turns to her art to cope and plunges into dreamlike worlds in an attempt to save him from afar. However, when dangers begin to unfold right in front of her, she realizes she must wake up and find a way to save herself.

Mating Habits of Fireflies bears witness to the impact of generational trauma on young people navigating a world constructed and tyrannized by others.