Moonlight Innamorata: A Novel

“A mind awakened, a body drained, a life left helplessly examined.” Thus follows the perpetual tragedy of Dario Romano, son of the head of the Italian Mafia in Philadelphia, and veteran of the “war to end all wars”, World War I. We humans - we fallible creatures - are prone to believing that we can dictate much of our own journeys, and that we know exactly what we want out of them. Dario thought he knew as well, until his road to glory rapidly spiraled downward into a descent to mental turmoil, the loss of loved ones, a questioning of his own agency, and in a word - hell. Much of what we aim to control is outside of said sphere, and much of what we desire is based on fleeting hopes born in arrogant bouts of bliss. What we also fail to understand is that we are creatures of habit. Dario fools himself into thinking he is “Dario enlightened” later in the story, though he finds himself making the same mistakes he made in the past, getting him into scenarios that he is now constantly fighting to escape. Will he catch on, or will he fall prey to our inherent natures? Moonlight Innamorata is a brutal story about a life like any other, though introduced to the extremes. Dario will experience love and loss, ambition and disappointment, victory and rapid defeat, pride and regret. It encapsulates the notion of life occasionally throwing situations onto our plates that we are not ready to handle, and our tendencies to think we can manage what is in actuality outside of that capacity. It shows the genuine effort of a strong individual to endure hardship and make of it what he can. It will conclude with a decision he presumes to be justified, though unsure of his ability to determine whether that judgment of his will be misguided or not. “God help me if I am mistaken.”