We’re pleased to present an excerpt from John Domini‘s new novel The Color Inside a Melon, out now on Dzanc Books. Here’s how the author describes his latest book:

Risto— Aristofano Al’Kair— is a rarity in contemporary Italy, an immigrant success story out of Africa. Born in Mogadishu, he’s earned Italian citizenship and lives in Naples with a wife native to the city, and here he runs a successful art gallery in a good neighborhood. Here near the novel’s start, a couple of disturbing developments have left Risto unsettled, heading on foot up from downtown to a sketchier neighborhood, home to his distant relative Eftah. This older immigrant is gay and has shakier legal standing, in Italy, yet has made a home and remains Risto’s closest thing to family.