Short Stories/Novellas

More than simply a golf story, “Last Call” portrays a round of golf played by, Sylvie, a middle-aged woman whose father lays terminally ill in a hospital bed two hours away. Since she and her father have always shared a love of the game, she decides to call him from the course, and then keep her cell phone on, talking to him as she plays, relating each shot and challenge in a language of love all their own. Her father strains to hear her voice through a blanket of pain, and both of them are swept up in warm and sometimes difficult memories. A meditation on father-daughter love, and the life lessons golf offers, “Last Call” is described by Roland Merullo, as one of the best pieces of writing he's done in thirty years at his desk. Roland Merullo is the author of 14 books including the novels Breakfast with Buddha, a nominee for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, In Revere, In Those Days, a Booklist Editors’ Choice, Revere Beach Boulevard, named as one of New England’s top 100 Essential Books by the Boston Globe, The Talk Funny Girl, a finalist for the New England Book Award and the memoir, Revere Beach Elegy, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for non fiction.

“What a Father Leaves” is the story of two men, father and son — each stubborn and determined in his own way, each facing the trials of life with a particular determination — and the way they come to understand and respect each other. This essay and several others can be found in Revere Beach Elegy: A Memoir of Home and Beyond. Michael Upchurch of the Seattle Times said “Revere Beach Elegy is an autobiography in ten essays that is sublimely refreshing in 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.” “Revere Beach Elegy is a smart and moving meditation on social class, boundaries and mobility...and much more,” said Ray Suarez of NPR and The Washington Post. And, the Chicago Tribune had this to say about the memoir, “Merullo has a knack for rendering emotional complexities, paradoxes, or impasses in a mere turn of the phrase.”

Rinpoche's Remarkable Ten-Week Weight Loss Clinic brings back two main characters from Roland Merullo's beloved Buddha Trilogy (Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner with Buddha). This time, though, instead of cruising the American road together, Otto Ringling and Volya Rinpoche are part of the famous meditation master's offbeat weight loss clinic, held over the course of ten Saturdays in a New York City yoga studio. "These characters have been alive in my imagination for a decade now," Merullo says, "and I just had the sense that Rinpoche, out of his deep compassion, would try to do something about America's obesity epidemic. I've also been fascinated for a long time by the way addiction works—whether it's addiction to food, drugs, alcohol, sex, work, or anything else—the way it occupies the mind and moves us to do things we know we would be better off not doing. I've always wondered what advice Rinpoche would give on the subject."Known—across twenty books, scores of essays, and twenty-five years of publishing—for being willing to try his hand at an unusually wide variety of themes, subjects, and genres, here Merullo works for the first time in the novella form, putting together a deft, moving, and tightly compressed tale that includes his trademark mix of spiritual inquiry and ordinary human emotions. "This story is about the challenge of losing weight, yes," the author says, "but there's a twist to it at the end, and that opens into a wider territory. I tried to approach it with a full appreciation for the difficulty of breaking old habits, and I gave up a beloved food myself for ten weeks, just to keep things honest."While it does not promise to help readers with their troublesome eating habits or other addictions, Rinpoche's Remarkable Ten-Week Weight Loss Clinic does look at those painful issues from a fresh angle, one full of sympathy and wisdom. It will certainly please lovers of the Buddha Trilogy, and perhaps bring new fans to the hundreds of thousands who've already enjoyed the travels and conversations of Otto and his enlightened teacher.