Earthquake I.D.

Title Page, Copyright, Acknowledgments, Dedication

Earthquake I.D. This page intentionally left blank. Earthquake I.D. a novel by John Domini RED HEN PRESS | Los Angeles, California Earthquake I.D. Copyright © 2007 by John Domini ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner. Cover design: Mark Shepard Book design: Stefanie Rosenblum ISBN-10: 1-59709-076-X ISBN-13: 978-1-59709-076-6 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006933035 Red Hen Press www.redhen.org The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles County Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts partially support Red Hen Press. First Edition Disclaimer: This book is a work of the imagination. Naturally the invention takes off from the facts, but any resemblance between the incidents and characters described here and actual events or actual persons, living or dead, is wholly coincidental. Acknowledgements No amount of thanks can begin to express how much the support of Kate Gale, Mark Cull, and Red Hen Press have meant to this book. Lettie Prell, likewise—though I must mention her crucial late reading. Mark Shepherd, thanks for another bracing splash of a book cover. Rick Lovett, Valerie Grey, Reg Gibbons, Faye Bender, Connie Fischbein, Alexander Hemon, Lex Runciman, and Roxanna Khosravi, thanks for early readings. Financial support came from the Northwestern University Center for the Writing Arts, Drake University, and the Metropolitan Arts Commission of Portland, OR. To write about Naples is to inscribe on a palimpsest. That very image is an older one, from Peter Gunn, a British lover of the city. My cityscape was scratched across his, and across other renderings by Shirley Hazzard and Frances Steegmuller, by John Horne Burns and Gustav Herling, by William Morris and Thomas Belmonte . . . and Goethe, and Shelley. . . . really, no book can complete the list, not even the heartrending Naples: 44, by Norman Lewis. To all I say grazie, and bravo. Among my Naples friends, the essential connection was Ognissanti, a visionary in terracotta. Also see the dedication, and spare a thought as well for my late father, born Vincenzo Vicedomini by the Piazza della Borsa, also called Piazza Bovio. This page intentionally left blank. Sorella, fratello, e tutti i cugini This page intentionally left blank. Earthquake I.D. This page intentionally left blank. O heavens, that they were living both in Naples, The King and Queen there! —The Tempest This page intentionally left blank. ...