This novel a mix of crime, ghost story and portrait of the protagonist continues Domini's tales in contemporary Southern Italy, in the manner of his last novel "Earthquake I.D." When an ancient grave on the fringes of Naples comes unexpectedly to light, an exquisite piece of funeral decoration leaves the twenty-something Fabbrizio suspended between his best impulses and his worst. On the one hand he wants to help his family, strapped for cashand to do right by his gift as a goldsmith. But on the other hand, Fabbrizio risks seduction by an array of dubious figures. Among these is an American femme fatale with a suspiciously close knowledge about Southern Italian criminal life -- the vicious local Mafia known as the Camorra. Also involved, soon enough, are a family of African boat people and the occasional visit from a ghost. All this and more comes together in brief, brutal, yet ultimately redemptive new novel. "A Tomb on the Periphery" deepens and intensifies John Domini s vision of contemporary Italy, revisiting the world of last year s highly-praised "Earthquake I.D.", nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and praised by Richard Ford. Yet this story stands entirely on its own, taking a radically different view of its home ground, discovering both fresh heartbreak and new possibility. The bad boy of "Tomb" may at first call to mind the amoral Ripley of Patricia Highsmith, and after that he tumbles through false panels enough for a story by Orhan Pamuk, but in the end he hammers out his own durable moral gold.
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"Being raised under the gun of the mob not the best way to stay a law abiding citizen through ones life. "A Tomb on the Periphery" is the tale of Fabbrizio a man who has been outside the law all his life, but tries to keep in touch with his humanity. An American archaeologist comes into his life, and among other hectic day to day tasks he must do to stay alive, her emergence doesn't help things. A fast paced thriller from first page to the last, "A Tomb on the Periphery" is a must for fans of the genre and community library thriller collections." --Midwest Book Review, June 2008
Few novels can stand up to the promise of tour de force, but here, John Domini is at the top of his form, writing beautifully, humming along like Fabbrizio on his Suzuki. This is a delightful crime novel, with a setting to die for, and at the same time a moving story that should interest a wide range of readers. A Tomb on the Periphery is a wonderful read. --Jay Parini
...John Domini is a master of suspense and of psychological complexity. The result is an edgy, richly peopled and thoroughly absorbing novel." --Margot Livesey
Few novels can stand up to the promise of tour de force, but here, John Domini is at the top of his form, writing beautifully, humming along like Fabbrizio on his Suzuki. This is a delightful crime novel, with a setting to die for, and at the same time a moving story that should interest a wide range of readers. A Tomb on the Periphery is a wonderful read. --Jay Parini
...John Domini is a master of suspense and of psychological complexity. The result is an edgy, richly peopled and thoroughly absorbing novel." --Margot Livesey
About the Author
John Domini has recently been given a major 2008 grant from the Iowa Arts Council for his writing and has accepted a visiting position in Creative Writing at Grinnell College. John Domini has published fiction in Paris Review, Ploughshares, Threepeny Review, and anthologies. His second collection, Highway Trade, was praised by Alan Cheuse, of NPR's "All Things Considered," 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... a flat-out delight." Domini has also published essays and other non-fiction in GQ, the New York Times, and many other places, including Italian journals. He is a regular book reviewer with The Believer and other publications. Domini has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram-Merrill Foundation, and elsewhere. He has taught across the country, has been a visiting writer at Harvard, Lewis & Clark, and Northwestern, and is currently based in Des Moines.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A TOMB ON THE PERIPHERY,
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This review is from: A Tomb on the Periphery (Paperback)
A self-contained sequel to Domini's virtuoso EARTHQUAKE I.D.(which focused on an American family encountering Naples as part of a NATO relief effort), this new novel focuses on the redemption of a young Neopolitan jeweler, Fabbrizio, who is involved with underground figures who steal relics from archeological digs and sell them to museums; and/or who sell counterfeit relics (which he crafts) to museums. The villains of the story are two local hoods, quick with knives. The intrigue and romance begins as Fabbrizio goes freelance, working with an American woman, who needs his help in robbing a tomb of a necklace worn by the skeleton of a Greek princess, and who claims to have a buyer in New York.
Fabbrizio earnestly seeks success in a dangerous and corrupt world. If the hoods discover him dealing contraband on his own, they will kill him. Of course, in the tomb "on the periphery" of Naples, a family of Somali refugees witnesses Fabbrizo and the American making off with the necklace; and the family is arrested when the theft is discovered, then later released. They hope to find Frabbrizo, recover the necklace and win permanent citizenship by returning it to the police. Fabbrizio has his own family ties: his father, Babo, had been a jewelry maker, whose business failed. Fabrizzo's older brother, Rico, is a computer nerd, lost in a dream of passing exams, but thanks to their mother, Babo accepts a dull office job. Fabrizzo himself keeps up the passion for making jewelry, albeit as a forger, wondering how his father could "have cut out his heart and tossed it in a desk drawer." His mother objects to illegal activity and wants him to Fabrizzo to advance himself through a "regular" life. But after his father dies, his mother has a heart attack and they need money to care for her. "No more black work," she pleads, but Fabrizzo sees a last contract with the hoods as a way to save the family. The American, Shanti, is a femme fatale to Fabrizzio, "spilling the damp green complications of humanity across the airbrushed flatness of his mental centerfold," and the repartee between them is consistently lively. Of course she turns out to be Italian herself. She only needs pictures of the stolen necklace to perpetrate an internet scam, and then willingly gives it to Fabrizzio. The local hoods don't know he has it. The Somali father has found him, but in the meantime the hoods have kidnapped the Somali mother and daughter. Farbrizzo, with the necklace, rushes to their rescue, and manages to triumph: "While his soul may have gone astray, his moral compass had remained true." Domini manages suspense as well as Alfred Hitchcock. The story is mostly told over Fabrizzo's shoulder, as his rumination, and in narrative prose that is rich in metaphor, wit, and sensory description. For instance, in his encounter with the Somali father: "the flecks of gold in the man's eyes remained hard to assess, like sparks thrown off by an interior blacksmithing too whanging and brutal for a light-fingered artigiano." The jeweler's art and magic is an apt corollary for Domini's writing.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A literary impressionist,
By
This review is from: A Tomb on the Periphery (Paperback)
John Domini's third novel is not my favorite ["Talking Heads:77" is]. But all his stories, including certainly this one, are interesting.
He has the sensibility of a poet, and reading him is not always easy; it's more akin to an appreciation of VanGogh, or Seurat, or even Matisse, than, say, Jan van Eyck, or John Constable. Compared to the impressionists, however, Domini's literary colors have a more precise edge to them, and his stories are worth the extra effort.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intrigue in Italia,
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This review is from: A Tomb on the Periphery (Paperback)
John Domini's "A Tomb on the Periphery" is a fast-paced and finely-wrought novel that draws heavily on the author's obvious erudition and his extensive knowlege of Neapolitan culture and society. The geographic and archeological details are rich and intensely realized, while the dialogue, and especially the humor, is resoundingly pitch-perfect. Fabbrizio, the novel's hard-boiled protagonist, displays an extraordinary psychological complexity and proves himself a compelling guide whose distinctive voice never wavers. Domini does here for Southern Italy what Peter Taylor once did for Memphis and William Kennedy did for Albany--and he does it just as well, with an original and vibrant flair. Readers who invest a few moments to peruse page one of "The Tomb on the Periphery" will soon find themselves engrossed, as I did, and their interest will be very well rewarded.
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