The Brooklyn Rail

John Domini, poet and novelist, critic and memoirist, beacon-bright with life and humor, always ready to help, and possessed of the finest mental compendium of Italian restaurants in the entire bloody world… I used to refer to him as “Maestro,” particularly when he was picking the restaurant. Now, as words fail me, I wonder whether all I can manage to call him is Good Old John.

This phrasing is the sort of placeholder we use to spare us the realities that underpin clichés. Here perhaps doubly so, because John wasn’t old at all. His gaze still danced with possibilities and plans—the books to be read and written, the trips, the meals. His passing came suddenly on calm seas, off the coast of Morocco: It came as that of a younger man, one taken far too soon.

But there can be truth in clichés, that’s the reality of it, and in this one, for John, it lies in the first part. Good is rare, increasingly rare in today’s world. Good is a friend with a quick wit and a joyful laugh. Good is someone you miss the second you hear of their passing. Good was, and is, John Domini.

Farewell and godspeed, Maestro.