On the Screen

Page 28 American Book Review agent, international refugee-hunger-strikers, Barb’s wanting a divorce then not wanting a divorce then wanting a divorce, forged documents, earthquakes (plural!), and this all without mentioning the media frenzy surrounding Paul’s repeatedly performing miracles on live TV. And a gypsy falsely accused of murder. And an electromagnetic pulse that destroys any number of hard drives—and the government records they store—in the Naples cityscape. By the end of the novel, it’s no surprise that at least this reader couldn’t much care for the characters. It’s unfortunate because Barb and Jay’s story, buried behind the plot, is touching, as good as anything in Talking Heads: 77. But the success of Domini ’s last work, like the best of both his short story collections, hinged on organic development; plot points were unexpected, but believable. Sustaining a tight focus, the novel was full of characters who, no matter how quirky, felt like friends. But in the way he distances the reader from Earthquake I.D.’s characters, Domini is the only one who will break your heart. Ryan Rase McCray’s creative nonfiction has received contest honors from Gulf Coast, PRISM International , and The Iowa Review. He is a student at the University of Cincinnati. McCray continued from previous page want to stay one moment and hope to escape the next? And in the Lulucita marriage, Domini pushes to the point of paradox, showing how people can inhabit both extremes simultaneously. No sooner has Barb informed Jay that she’s leaving him that they end up having the hottest sex either can remember; hurt and disgusted with her husband, still “the need to come…cut[s] into her sleep.” On the other hand, Jay, an awkwardly devoted husband willing to “go halfway around the world to save [his family],” volunteers in Naples only to fulfill his wife’s late-in-life search for “meaning.” But, ironically, abandoning his previous life is what most injures his marriage. So while Barb’s attempt to leave results in her needing Jay all the more, Jay’s sacrifice is what drives the two apart. But the same depth cannot be found in the novel’s other characters. The bad guys are incorrigibly bad, shady, the kind of evil reserved for noir pulp; the only time an antagonist isn’t one-dimensional, his plans use Paul to heal an entire nation one person at a time. Likewise, the Lulucita children mostly serve only as obstacles preventing Barb from divorcing Jay: Before John Junior and Chris, the oldest siblings at seventeen and fifteen respectively , set out to make a movie in the novel’s last third, their only purpose is occasionally witty commentary on the day’s outing; the eight-year-old twin girls, Dora and Sylvia, are literally interchangeable and indistinguishable, useful only for introducing na- ïveté into dialogue; and Paul, the neglected star of the novel, is so quiet as to be sometimes forgotten even by Barb. Domini attempts to enliven the cast with a visit from Jay’s mother, but in romantically pursuing a priest, she lightens the novel’s tone to the point of parody. How can the reader care about the novel’s deeper religious questions when a priest just wants to get laid? How can we believe in the meaningfulness of one relationship (Jay and Barb’s), when center stage is given instead to a seductive mother-in-law-on-the-prowl and a clergyman? Ultimately, we can’t, at least not in this narrative . Domini has chosen an intriguing initial conflict contrasting as it does the private (Barb’s desire for a divorce) with the public (Paul’s healing plays on international television). But he lets the plot get away from the story: In addition to events already described , there are three kidnappings, a corrupt NATO On the Screen Kevin Grauke Life Goes to the Movies Peter Selgin Dzanc Books http://www.dzancbooks.org 252 pages; paper, $16.95 Near the end of Life Goes to the Movies, the first novel from Peter Selgin, whose collection of stories, Drowning Lessons, won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short...