The Gravity of Love

The Gravity of Love tells the story of a mother, a son, and a husband and father, who has been dead for over twenty years. Having learned she has cancer, the mother, Ginny, delays returning home and becomes a missing person to her children and her second husband. Memories of the missing person in her life draw her back to her first husband, and she relives their life, his death, and the madness of her grief that mirrored the depth of her love. For her son, David, the missing person has always been his father, even when he was alive. Memories of the absence of his father’s love, of feeling worthless and hollow, haunt David and draw him back to the home he fled with as much power as the memories of his mother’s love. Ginny dies, and David, determined to understand what has eluded him all his life, resolves to write his story. Narrated in the first person in five parts (Parts I, III, and V by David, and Parts II and IV by Ginny), The Gravity of Love immerses the reader in the inner lives of these characters.

Praise for the Gravity of Love

“THE GRAVITY OF LOVE is a magnificent haunting duet of grief, absence, and the unshakable bonds of family … a profoundly moving,  profoundly human novel…”  

— Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 

The Gravity of Love is that rare book that tells a story for everyone. It’s obsessed with family and memory, the equal dominion those two things share over our lives, and the grief we often find there. In lyrical, looping, loving prose, Brian Duren has worked toward Proust, that grand master of remembrance. This book is hypnotic and stylish and unforgettable.

—Peter Geye, author of THE SKI JUMPERS

What price does a man pay when his father never loved him? What does a mother do, torn between her love for husband and son who cannot get along? These are questions at the heart of Brian Duren’s third novel, after “Whiteout” and “Ivory Black.” It is his most complex story, filled with emotions and family love and spanning two generations. . . . This is a novel to read slowly and with care. Seeing the characters’ lives first as they happened, then in memory, gives the story a richness that comes from getting to know well-drawn characters and their emotional lives.”

—Mary Ann Grossmann, St. Paul Pioneer Press

Some books are best read in the sun on a beach, some in silence in the dead of night, and some are best suited to a long train ride. I recommend reading Brian Duren’s The Gravity of Love during a snowstorm. That’s what I did, looking up from the book now and then to watch the fat clumps of snowflakes fall straight and inexorably down, then back into this richly imagined, meticulously researched, and elegantly written novel of family and love, of inevitability and transgression—then again at the snow, which will melt, but I’ll be thinking about The Gravity of Love for a very long time.

—Pete Hautman, National Book Award-winning author of Godless. 

The Gravity of Love is a family saga that digs into what we will do for love and what happens without it. An intense, deep story with a lot of heart—and even more soul.  A remarkable read.

—Mary Logue, author of THE STREEL and THE BIG SUGAR

THE GRAVITY OF LOVE is an evocative tale of the familial bonds that can grow stronger even as they’re torn apart. This mother and son’s journey through the jagged landscape of resentment and loss is often tragic, yet ultimately liberating. An immersive read that will stay with me a long time.

— Brian Malloy, author of The Year of Ice and After Francesco.

The Gravity of Love is a wonderfully open-hearted novel about passion, affection, grief, and regret. Brian Duren asks all the best and most unanswerable questions: what inspires romantic or familial love, and what causes it to die -- or persist? Why do love or resentment often outlast the people who bring them to life? This is a deeply felt, memorable book, rich with detail.

— Julie Schumacher, Thurber Prize-winning author of Dear Committee Members

THE GRAVITY OF LOVE is about grief and loss, but it’s also about love and redemption, about how we can go back and recover our lost selves. It’s a reminder that the love of one person can mend the heartbreak caused by another. It’s about resilience and creating a new life for yourself and the people you love. . . . THE GRAVITY OF LOVE is . . . a reflective contemplation on what it means to love and be loved and the people we call family. 

—Superior Reads