The Dark Madonna: A Fable of Resiliency and Imagination

An American neuroscientist becomes embroiled in an international mystery that explores the meaning of miracles. While attending a scientific conference in Poland New Orleans neuroscientist Dr. Alvaro Cruz visits Auschwitz and faces the ghosts of his own harrowing escape from Argentina’s “Dirty War” of the 1970’s. When he and his wife meet an American artist-priest just outside the entrance of the notorious concentration camp Alvaro is inexplicably drawn to this enigmatic man and his stories about the icon of Catholic Poland known as “The Black Madonna” and a religious vision he experienced as a young art student. After returning to Krakow Alvaro can’t get the comments and demeanor of young Father Stephen out of his mind. When Alvaro’s colleague invites him to visit the Jasna Gora Monastery where the famed Black Madonna of Czestochowa is housed he jumps at the opportunity. During his visit to the monastery an elderly woman becomes hysterical about the changed appearance of the Madonna, and suffers an epileptic seizure; she insists this is not the real Black Madonna, confirming his own odd sensation that the painting was not authentic! In his obsession with discovering the truth Alvaro begins to piece together fragments of the complex mystery surrounding the icon’s history. What his findings reveal, the real story of the Black Madonna and the people charged with protecting her, could never have been anticipated. What comes to light is a stunning revelation not only about the painting but also about human frailty and our mind’s ability to overcome it. And when Alvaro Cruz begins to unravel the intricately woven truth behind the mysterious devotional icon, we are led into the recesses of intersection between science and divine. Like Bazan’s previous Alvaro Cruz novel, Una Vida: A Fable of Music and the Mind, The Dark Madonna: A Fable of Resiliency and Imagination is a compelling narrative interplay of religion, science, culture, and art. Where scientific explanation ends and religious mystery begins lies the open synapse that connects human with divine. Bazan, author, entrepreneur, and director of the Neuroscience Center for Excellence at New Orleans’ LSU Health Sciences Center, wraps his self-reflective character and multi-layered plot in expert historical observations to such a precise degree that the scholarship required to spin this tale makes it almost impossible to imagine that this is something he managed to put together. The book trailer is available on YouTube.com Dr. Bazan resides in New Orleans, LA.