Gina Barreca, columnist for The Courant and author o It’s Not That I’m Bitter wrote this about the death yesterday of the great James Gandolfini. Here’s an excerpt. You can read the rest here. 

Losing James Gandolfini, star of “The Sopranos,” is like losing a favorite cousin. The sense of shock and grief over his unexpected and sudden death Wednesday has people talking, writing and — yes — grieving. This is more than the ordinary reaction to the death of celebrity. This is not an everyday, “Oh, too bad. He was only about 50, right?” shrug-and-switch-topics water-cooler conversation.

Our reaction to Gandolfini’s death is more along the lines of emails exchanged at midnight with subject lines like “It can’t be true!” and “I can’t believe how depressed this makes me …”

Maybe it’s because I’m Italian American. Or from the New York area. Or because I was enough of a fan of “The Sopranos” to edit a book on the show. Perhaps it was because the character he played, Tony Soprano, changed American television forever.