Design Of Darkness

Design of Darkness tells the interlocking stories of two supremely gifted people, one that ends in tragedy and one in triumph. In the words of her fiancé, the medical doctor and narrator Larry Freeling, Maryanna McKenna is the smartest and sweetest woman he has ever met. She earns her doctorate in astronomy at 22, while Eddie Swinton, her best friend from childhood, learns from her father how to make a fortune in construction. Maryanna is about to marry the narrator when mosquito-borne encephalitis wrecks her intellect, reducing her to infancy. A woman who has mastered the most advanced mathematics for her doctoral dissertation is incapable of understanding even picture books for babies. Maryanna’s parents guard her with the same great love for the next several decades that they provided through her upbringing. Meanwhile, Eddie Swinton flourishes when his life becomes the American Dream. He marries the homecoming queen, raises three additional homecoming queens, and earns $100 million through construction in a life filled with beauty, wit, and charm. By juxtaposing such extremes of fate, Design of Darkness has few rivals for the way it turns existence back into a riddle that defies religious answers. “Tell it as a love story! Tell it as a tragedy! Tell it as a triumph! Tell it as a mystery!” are the last words of Maryanna’s father to the narrator. Larry pours his own heart’s blood and memories of love into a tale as powerful and haunting as the lives of Maryanna and Eddie.