Non-Fiction Books

A great writer explores the spiritual, mental, and physical joys of golf.

In Revere Beach Elegy, winner of the 2000 Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction, Roland Merullo, author of ten novels and three other books of nonfiction, reflects on family, friends and a series of experiences that include a stint in the Peace Corps, service in the former Soviet Union, and excursions to Europe. The author shares his spiritual, intellectual and emotional discoveries along the way, writing about his relationship with his father, his working class upbringing and upper class education, the early years of his marriage, and the gift of children. From a severe eye injury and a broken back, to the joys of Italian travel and friendship, from poverty to abundance, adolescence to middle age, Merullo paints a life that is rich with adventure and insight.Michael Upchurch of The Seattle Times said, “Revere Beach Elegy is an autobiography in ten essays that is sublimely refreshing it its love and generosity. Merullo’s prose, as he outlines the worlds he cherishes, has a luminous subtlety that brings alive rich layers of feeling in an immediate intelligible manner. His eye stays intently trained on how we guide ourselves through life.” And, Publishers Weekly wrote, “Merullo writes about [the adventures] and the people and places of his life with careful reflection and painstaking kindness…”

The author of Golfing with God traces his 2007 summer near the shore of Italy's Lake Como, where he played on several northern-region courses of distinction, shared lavish meals with his family, and interacted with a host of eccentric locals.

During the ten years author Roland Merullo (Breakfast with Buddha) taught at the university level, and during the numerous writing conferences and workshops he has been a part of since then, he has heard volumes of advice about the technical aspects of writing including plot, character, pace, description, dialogue, theme, metaphor, and symbolism. In the conferences especially, there has been a lot of practical information about finding an agent, attracting a publisher, self-publishing, e-publishing, and marketing a book once it is in print. All this is very good, helpful, and necessary. For high school and college writers, the technical material is useful; for those writing a book or hoping to make a career in the world of words, the practical material can provide a clear understanding of the publishing landscape. But again and again in those classrooms and workshops, Merullo was struck by the fact that very little was being said about what might be called the emotional or psychological aspects of the writing process. Over the course of thirty years in the profession, thirteen book publications, and several hundred articles, reviews and essays…and thanks to countless conversations with writers – some famous, some widely published and admired, some struggling to finish a first book or find an agent, or just earn a good grade on a college assignment – Merullo knows how critical that interior dimension of the writing life is. In this book, Merullo hopes to shed some light on that dimension of the work, not as a psychiatrist or counselor, but as an author, because he “is sure that writing success – however that term is defined for the individual writer – always has its roots in the soil of the psychological/emotional world.” From chapters entitled “Writer’s Block” to “Finding A Mentor” to “Impatience and Rejection”, Merullo covers these topics with the insight, empathy and encouragement of an author who has “been there.” Demons of the Blank Page is a no-nonsense handbook and guide for aspiring and established writers alike. Merullo’s work has been hailed “happily inventive, precise and musical” by The Boston Globe and “emotionally complex, politically intelligent, [and] beautifully written” by Kirkus Reviews.

A hilarious account of one absolutely disastrous Italian vacation, a story full of illness and good food, cold houses and warm people, bad decisions, marital spats, and family love. True in every detail, it is the tale of a trip award-winning author Roland Merullo made with his wife of many years, their two young children, and his brave octogenarian mother as an attempt to escape the New England winter and enjoy Italian cuisine, architecture, warm weather, and each other. Shortly after arriving at their rental house north of Rome, however, the Merullo family finds itself neck-deep in a swamp of misfortune. A stomach flu takes hold of their younger daughter and will not let go. The house is freezing cold, isolated, and patrolled by a pack of pesky mongrels. Hoping to escape the situation, the family heads south on a 500 mile drive, only to encounter, among a cast of eccentric characters, more bad luck. Their ability to cope — sometimes — and laugh — afterwards — forms the heart of Taking the Kids to Italy.

The Ten Commandments of Golf Etiquette is a book for people new to the game. It offers no advice on technique; instead, it is a primer on how to behave on the golf course: how to be safe, be considerate of others, play at a good pace, and how to understand the complex etiquette and unwritten code involved in a round of golf with others. There are also brief descriptions of the most commonly-encountered rules, a list of necessary equipment, and a glossary of golf terms. This small book is designed so that the new player will step onto the course and feel immediately at home.

Every day around the globe there are billions of acts of kindness, courage, generosity, and grace, but we rarely get to hear much about them. It’s easier to write about the evil in the world than about the good. Writers who focus on violence, greed, ugliness, and hypocrisy can appear more sophisticated, more intelligent, more mature, more aware of the world's true nature. Roland Merullo recognizes these challenges to humankind as clearly as anyone, but he also believes they get more than their share of coverage, and that cargo of bad news can act as an oppressive weight on the mind. At the start of a recent gray, cold, New England winter, Merullo decided to make a list of some of the remarkable acts he has witnessed, and the generous, kind, and brave people he has had the good fortune to know. Moments of Grace and Beauty: Forty Stories of Kindness, Courage, and Generosity in a Troubled World is intended to serve as a counterweight to the abundance of trouble in the news, and is offered as evidence of the good will still present on earth.

Roland Merullo’s Driving Jesus to Little Rock, fits neatly on the shelf with his other beloved, quirky-spiritual books: Golfing with God, American Savior, Vatican Waltz, The Delight of Being Ordinary, and the Buddha trilogy (Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner)—a list that has sold over half a million copies and been widely translated. This time, the narrator, Eddie Valpolicella, is on his way from Massachusetts to Arkansas to give a talk on "his" novel, Breakfast with Buddha, when, not far from home, he picks up a mysterious hitchhiker. Plainly dressed, insisting that he's a fan of the author, the hitchhiker claims to be Jesus, the Jesus, and accompanies Eddie on a five-day road trip that challenges him in an amusing variety of ways. Every night on the way south, Eddie calls home to speak with his wife, and Anna Maria’s fiery insistence on choosing trust over suspicion gradually pushes him out of his original cynicism. Jesus plays tricks appearing and disappearing, changing shape, vacillating from stern teacher to affectionate friend—and Eddie, confused, suspicious, and wrestling with his own preconceived notions of spirituality, only very slowly realizes that he’s being given precious guidance in the art of living. As he did in his other road trip adventures, Merullo manages to walk a tightrope by raising deep philosophical questions without sounding preachy. The author provokes readers to think about life while also making them laugh and providing them with a boots-on-the-ground view of America. This journey includes wealthy Russian businessmen, poor Appalachian deer hunters, South American spirit guides, and tours of places as seemingly disparate as a therapeutic massage studio in Lower Manhattan, the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, and Thomas Merton’s Gethsemane monastery in rural Kentucky. Along the way there are meals and drinks, wrong turns and intriguing scenery, all brought into focus beside the book’s utterly original yet strangely believable Jesus. Driving Jesus to Little Rock amuses, illuminates, and entertains, ultimately serving as the perfect comfort-food for battered, post-Covid readers.