Inferno unfolds between 1984 and 1986, primarily in Holyoke, Chicopee, and Amherst, Massachusetts, with excursions to Springfield, Vermont, New York City, Hawaii, 19th-century France, and 12th-century Spain. At its center is Nancey Reese, a nurse whose coming-of-age takes her from a state of youthful naïveté through a period of tumultuous growth to the threshold of early maturity. Along the way, we learn with her—about her work, her friends, her romantic entanglements, her joys, and her frustrations.

While grounded in bracingly realistic fiction and rich with atmosphere, Inferno also explores more literary and poetic terrain. The narrative is shaped by three shifting narrators—distinct yet interconnected—who appear in various guises, interact, and evolve. Together, they reflect a fragmented but ultimately coherent self, suggesting the layered complexity of identity and the challenges inherent in telling one's story.

Disrupting the core narrative are science and fantasy chapters that add unexpected texture—complicating and deepening the central arc. What emerges is a cross-genre meditation on selfhood, transformation, and the porous boundaries between realism and imagination. The novel closes not with certainty, but with tension, threat, and the glimmer of promise.

Alan Cohen retired after a rewarding career in medicine and turned his attention to writing and publication. His poetry has appeared in nearly 100 venues; he has had letters to the editor in Poetry magazine and the New Yorker (a new one was just published December 8th, 2025); and has published medical articles and essays concerning current affairs. Easy in Harness: A Productive Approach to Hiring a Good Manager was published in 2023, Taxonomic Vignettes, a book of poetry, in 2024, and Inferno, a novel, in November of 2025. Each has had highly positive feedback from reviewers and readers. And he has now completed Hijacked, a new nonfiction work about how to revive equality, democracy, and freedom.