Storytelling Should Never Be Confused with Sociology: The Millions Interviews John Domini
John Domini’s stunning new novel, The Color Inside a Melon, concludes his trilogy set in Naples after a fictional earthquake. Risto, an immigrant from Somalia, investigates the brutal murder of a more recent African emigrant. As readers, we’re caught in a gripping mystery while submerged in a dream/nightmare Naples: its immigrants and its racism; its beauty and its bureaucracy. Domini’s language is as poetic and mythical as his vision is dark and disturbing. Domini’s characters come from many different cultures, and his novel is located in far-ranging locales. I had several questions for Domini about what inspired him and where his knowledge and experience ended and his imagination began.
The Millions: In the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in 2017 you referred to your father as “un eroe delle Quattro Giornate di Napoli,” or “a hero of the Four Days of Naples,” referring to his experiences during WWII as Neapolitans rose up against Nazi occupation. Can you talk about your family history in Naples and how it led to your trilogy set there?
The headline indulged some journalistic hyperbole. That word wasn’t one I used, and as for my father, it would’ve set any turn of thought may cause those flavors to once more flood my man’s mouth. A few times, to be sure, Risto gags on the taste.
