Earthquake I.D. [Paperback]

JOHN DOMINI (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2007

Earthquake I.D. offers an exciting new take on Americans in Italy: a nightmare reframing, yet leavened throughout with wit and compassion. The setting is the turbulent southern metropolis of Naples, an urban hive that has suffered many an earthquake over the centuries. The next such shakeup provides Domini with his premise. His American family, Jay and Barbara Lulucita and their five children, are something like innocents abroad. In the naïve belief that they can help, they come to this crime-riddled and quake-broken city, which in recent years has also suffered another upheaval namely, the impact of the illegal immigrants pouring in from Africa. But soon enough Domini s protagonists, in particular the richly conflicted wife and mother, prove something less than angels themselves. They buzz with their own secrets and trials. In exploring the turmoil that led this family to abandon their former lives, as well as the larger hurly-burly of Naples, Domini has recourse to a few elements that break from ordinary reality. There s a child faith-healer, rather a New Age version of the classic Catholic figure. There s an unnerving NATO officer, forever in the same outfit yet forever in disguise. At times the book recalls Patricia Highsmith and her amoral Ripley, at times Javier Marais and his swarming what-ifs, at times Ian McEwen and his dark comedie humaine. Throughout, despite its bizarre effects, Earthquake I.D. renders an Italy complex and exact, with rare style and a discerning ear. Domini delivers us through terror and laughter to a place of conscience: true to its world and its inhabitants, all struggling to cling to the paper that says they belong.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Earthquake I.D. is a wonderful novel of an old-fashioned sort. It's a rich feast--full of vivid incidents, of sparkling observation, wit, real mystery, characters we believe. It's truly a novel worth savoring. --Richard Ford

John Domini is a writer of the world, with a deft talent for negotiating the currents of our age, and in Earthquake I.D. he palpably distills the seductive and malevolent chaos that is Naples. --Steve Erickson

Earthquake I.D.... is an exploration of contrasts: opulence and destitution; the loved, the loving, and the dissatisfied; intractable guilt, piety and sin.... There's nothing tired about Domini's well-orchestrated narrative... the complex development of Barbara's character, the slow reveal of family/company secrets, and concern for the Lulucita children make for justly engaging storylines. With elegant representations of the visual and tactile..., Earthquake I.D. is a dramatic narrative of cosmopolitan ideas. --The Literary Review

About the Author

John Domini has won awards in all genres, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Meridian Editors Prize. He has published fiction in Paris Review, Ploughshares, and anthologies, non-fiction in GQ, the New York Times, and elsewhere, including Italian journals. Alan Cheuse, of NPR s All Things Considered, described his second collection, Highway Trade, as the way we live now... witty, biting portraits. His first novel, Talking Heads: 77, was praised by the Pulitzer winner Robert Olen Butler as both cutting-edge innovative and splendidly readable. Domini is also a reviewer with The Believer and other publications, and has worked as a visiting writer at many universities, including Harvard and Northwestern. He has another Naples novel coming out next year, and Italian publication for Earthquake I.D. is being arranged through a house that was the first to translate Don DeLillo.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Red Hen Press; 1st edition (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159709076X
• ISBN-13: 978-1597090766
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,883,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant shape-shifter of a novel, May 12, 2010

By 

Lauren B. Davis (Princeton, New Jersey) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Earthquake I.D. (Paperback)

John Domini has written a dense, beautiful, deeply thoughtful novel. What a pleasure it is to read a book written by someone who not only has a profound regard for the power of words (his descriptions of landscape are splendid), but also a respect for great story-telling and an enormous sense of compassion for the human condition.

Set in Naples, Italy, in the aftermath chaos of a major earthquake, the Lulucita family arrive in the city, ostensibly to offer aid to undocumented, already-marginalized citizens (mostly Sub-Saharan refugees), now turned quake victims living in tent cities. Almost upon arrival, the family is mugged and their documents stolen. The Earthquake I.D.s of the title are replacement, temporary passports issued by the powers that be, and the central metaphor for the novel. We are all, Domini seems to be saying, people without permanent places, or even permanent identities.

The point of view is that of Barbara Lulucita, often referred to as "the mother," a woman seriously considering ending her marriage. Domini does a terrific joy of digging deep in the psyche of a woman in crisis. It's pitch-perfect -- the confusion, guilt, anguish, rage, passion and sorrow, all mixed together. The setting is also perfectly described and utilized, becoming a symbol for the tensions and chaos in the hearts and minds of the novel's characters.

This is a brilliant shape-shifter of a novel.

It is at times metaphysical: Paul, the middle son apparently has the power to heal by the laying on of hands, beginning with healing his father whose head is cracked wide open in the opening scenes. People follow him around, offering him holy trinkets to bless, pressing their lips to the windows of a car he rides in. He becomes an icon, and such things can be dangerous.

It is at times theological: Barbara, devoutly Catholic befriends a priest and their conversations are complex and nuanced. (It should be noted that the rhythm of the prose almost sounds as if it's been written by someone who speaks Italian as their mother tongue, and far from being irritating, for me this added to the sense of cultural laying at work.)

It is at times a meditation on culture clash: consider the jarring juxtaposition between the Lulucita's white-bread and mini-van Connecticut background and the teeming, messy, malodorous tent city. Consider the disturbing failed adoption of a Mexican teenager with marks on her body indicating she may have been kept in a cage -- and how the girl sexually fondles the boys in the family. Consider, too, that even though the Lulucitas find themselves battered and without I.D. as do the refugees, they are never treated like refugees, but always with the preference of assumed privilege, which of course only deepens the chiaroscuro.

At other times it is political: the displaced refugees, the toxicity of mass media, corrupt NATO corruption, the haves and have-nots.

And it is also a novel of family secrets and loyalties and the heart of a woman.

Okay, SMALL criticisms -- the title and the cover. The cover doesn't do the book justice -- bland and unappealing, and unlikely to seduce a buyer in a bookstore. Similarly, I don't like the title, finding it less-than-evocative. There is a phrase Domini uses early on in the book to describe Naples; he calls it a "city of prayers." All the way through, I couldn't help but wish he'd used that for the title. Domini might not have had much choice in these things, but I'm just saying...the work deserves better, in my humble opinion.

In the end, nothing is simple in this novel, and the complexity can be dizzying, but the pleasure is undeniable. Domini seems to be asking the reader to consider his/her own response to world events, to privilege and our responsibilities to each other. I, for one, know I'll be thinking about this novel for a long time to come. Well done.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Neapolitan dreamscape, January 30, 2010

By 

David D. Winner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Earthquake I.D. (Paperback)

I agree with the other commenter who said the book is hard to pin down. It's vivid, original. The post quake Neapolitan landscape with its odd AMerican, Italian, African, gypsy characters, the political intrigue, the mysticism is really riveting
As a readers, we never feel on solid ground, but we keep on reading anyway, sucked into this strange and compelling universe.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review by Walt Shotwell, January 20, 2008

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Walt Shotwell (Des Moines, IA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earthquake I.D. (Paperback)

One John Domini novel equals about three semesters of creative writing. Accordingly, his latest book, "Earthquake I. D.," qualifiies him for a doctorate.
The book is about an earthquake, except that it isn't. It's about an accident that should have killed, a marriage that did die, and how a family teetering on oblivion manages to survive an earthly upheaval.
No ex-newspaperman should be allowed to review such a novel as "Earthquake I. D." News writers summarize in the first paragraph, then fill in the details until they run out of room, maybe 21 inches.
Domini, however, tints his narrative with subtlety, sympathy and shock; the reader has to pay attention.
That done, "Earthquake I.D." leaves the reader with a remarkable sense of fulfillment.

Walt Shotwell, retired Des Moines Register reporter/columnist