HIGHlights lately
John's latest is the memoir, The Archeology of a Good Ragù, 2021. On Guernica World Editions, it concerns his midlife recovery by way of Naples, his father's native city. Blurbs came from Bob Shacochis and Laura Van den Berg, and book was a finalist for the Big Other award in non-fiction.
A long excerpt appeared in Lit Hub. A rave review appeared in Brooklyn Rail: "astonishing depth." Rain Taxi called the book "superbly rendered," American Book Review "savvy" and "eye-opening," ArtFuse "deftly written," and Ovunque Siamo praised its "energy and insight." The Iowa NPR station interviewed him as well as several magazines. In Brevity, Domini refected on how he composed the memoir.
Arkadia Editore has picked up John's earlier novel Talking Heads: 77 for Italian publication in 2024.
In June, 2019, Dzanc Books published The Color Inside a Melon. Blurfbs included Salman Rushdie and Marlon James, and there's been praise in Washington Post, The Millions, Kirkus, Nervous Breakdown, and elsewhere.Other coverage included review-interviews in Fiction Writers Review and Writeliving. Excerpts appeared in Conjunctions, Del Sol Review, and elsewhere.
The novel closes a loose Naples trilogy. For more, see the Books page, and the entry for John on Wikipedia.
The Color Inside a Melon won Honorable Mention in the 2019 Book Award from the Italian American Studies Association. The Brooklyn Rail listed it as one of the best books of the year.
In 2016 John published a set of linked stories, MOVIEOLA!. An Italian edition appeared on Jona Editore in 2019, with reviews at Librofilia and elsewhere. Blurbs for MOVIEOLA! came from David Shields, Sam Lipsyte, and others, and the stories appeared in Conjunctions, The Collagist, and elsewhere.
Vanity Fair praised MOVIEOLA! as "thoroughly entertaining" in its "Hot Type" column for June 2016. BBC Culture named it a "book to devour," and The Millions hailed it as "a new shriek for a new century."
Dzanc also brought out the 2014 selection of essays and criticism, The Sea-God's Herb. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, John is a regular contributor to Brooklyn Rail, with other work in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, LitHub, and elsewhere.
In Sea-God's Herb, subjects range from novels and poetry to visual arts and TV. Publishers' Weekly called the collection "fascinating," Brooklyn Rail "important," and interviews appeared in The Believer and elsewhere. He's putting together a new selection titled Caliban's Cry: On a Literature Unhoused.
John's poetry, The Grand McLuckless Road Atlas, is in all formats on Pedestrian Press/Bicycle Review. His 2008 novel A Tomb on the Periphery, on Gival Press, is also available. See Books.
John's first four titles are in electronic editions on Dzanc: two story collections and two novels. All formats are available. Bedlam, John's first book, includes a new author's preface and two stories previously uncollected
Terremoto Napoletano, the Italian translation of Earthquake I.D., was runner-up for the '09 Domenico Rea prize.
John did the translation of Tullio Pironti's memoir, Books & Rough Business, which received wide notice in Italy.
Contact John Domini
John welcomes word from readers and thinkers: dominijohn51 at gmail dot com.
In 2021 appeared John's 10th book, a memoir, The Archeology of a Good Ragù. Praise came in Brooklyn Rail and elsewhere. Earlier he published four novels, the most recent The Color Inside a Melon, 2019, with blurbs from Salman Rushdie and others. The novel was listed among the year's best. Set in Naples, Italy, it completes a loose trilogy that began with Earthquake I.D. He also has three books of stories, the latest MOVIEOLA! The Millions called this "a new shriek for a new century."
His books have appeared in Italian, and he's done translation himself. He's appeared in anthologies, in all genres, and in Paris Review, New York Times, and other places. Grants include an NEA Fellowship and an Iowa Major Artist Award.
He's taught at Harvard, Northwestern, and elsewhere, and lives in Des Moines with the science fiction writer Lettie Prell.
Photo credit: Camille Renee.