A Florentine scholar’s visions of Dante and Beatrice form the background for this story of a young man’s sexual obsession and spiritual awakening. A contemporary novel of an attempted murder and its mystical consequences set in Florence and Connecticut, Dear Dante defies easy categorization. The narrator of this novel is an English-born Italian, a professor of Renaissance studies now living in Tuscany. A bi-sexual father in the midst of a marital and spiritual crisis, the professor turns to the poet Dante for consolation. However, it is not only Dante but a former American student who inadvertently helps the professor see the way out of his “dark wood.” The student’s story of his own redemptive journey through a personal hell -- the attempt to murder his lover's husband, his struggle to choose between the two women in his life -- inspires the professor’s spiritual renewal. This compelling story within the story is the core of Dear Dante.