The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20170722003821/http://rolandmerullo.com:80/index-1.html

"Merullo has the ability to make not only the personal universal,
but the everyday sacred."- Baltimore Sun

"Merullo has a graceful way with dialogue, allowing his characters' wit - sometimes caustic, sometimes sweet - to unfold naturally. There is even some slapstick, Merullo, in fact, makes dazzlingly few missteps here. For all its sadness, his narrative is never maudlin; for all its familiarity, it's never trite. No tears are jerked in the delivery of this solidly satisfying little romance, whose author is something of a Houdini in the art of escaping banality."
- Washington Post
"What makes In Revere, In Those Days stand out from most other contemporary novels is its graceful prose, its deep and decent characters, and its quiet insistence upon the fundamental dignity of humanity."
- Seattle Times
"Emotionally complex, politically intelligent, beautifully written: Among the best from a novelist in the classic American tradition."
- Kirkus
"Merullo, writes with grace and insight... is neither maudlin nor sentimental but clear-eyed, realistic and evocative. His characters stumble upon moments of redemption and terror, as if quiet epiphanies suddenly appear on the roller-coaster of hope and doom on which they find themselves. Layers and levels of emotion surface and dissolve in a prose that's so fine-tuned it feels effortless. .."
- Providence Journal
"In a blurb on the jacket of his most recent novel, Anita Shreve says that The Talk-Funny Girl is one of the best novels she has ever read. I never thought I'd have found myself nodding in enthusiastic agreement with a jacket blurb, but Roland Merullo writes with a nearly flawless hand. If you haven't ever read him, you should."
- Commentary

Roland Merullo is the award-winning author of twenty books of fiction and non-fiction. These range from suspense novels (Fidel's Last Days, A Russian Requiem, Revere Beach Boulevard, The Return) to love stories (A Little Love Story, The Talk-Funny Girl, Leaving Losapas) to golf and travel books (Golfing with God, Passion for Golf, The Italian Summer, Taking the Kids to Italy) to humorous spiritual road trips (Breakfast with Buddha, Lunch with Buddha, Dinner with Buddha, Golfing with God, American Savior.) His work has been translated across the globe, from China to Brazil, from Korea to Croatia and has sold hundreds of thousands of copies to date.

Breakfast with Buddha, a nominee for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, is now in its 20th printing. A 2012 ALEX Award Winner, The Talk-Funny Girl, was named a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Library Association and the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Publishers Weekly named Vatican Waltz one of the Best Books of 2013 and Lunch with Buddha was selected as one of the Best Books that same year by Kirkus Reviews. Revere Beach Boulevard was named as one of the “Top 100 Essential Books of New England” by the Boston Globe. A Little Love Story was chosen as one of “Ten Wonderful Romance Novels” by Good Housekeeping and Revere Beach Elegy won the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction.

His latest novel, The Delight of Being Ordinary, to published by Doubleday in April 2017, has already received advanced praise and a Kirkus starred review. Another humorous story decorated with some serious philosophical / spiritual considerations, it features the Pope and Dalai Lama making an unauthorized road trip around Italy in disguise.

Much in demand as a speaker, Merullo has given informal talks as well as commencement and convocation speeches at colleges and universities in New England, California, Florida, North Carolina, Minnesota, Colorado, and Nebraska, as well as at open-minded churches of various denominations and hundreds of libraries, schools, and community organizations.

Merullo was born in Boston and raised in the working-class city of Revere, Massachusetts. He had a scholarship to Exeter Academy, attended Boston University for two years, transferred to Brown and graduated there. While at Brown, Merullo earned a Master's in Russian Studies. He has been a Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia, and worked on cultural exchange exhibits in the former USSR.
A former writer in residence at North Shore Community College and Miami Dade Colleges, and professor of Creative Writing at Bennington, Amherst and Lesley Colleges, Merullo's essays have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, Outside Magazine, Yankee Magazine, Newsweek, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Magazine, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He is a frequent contributor of commentary for National Public Radio affiliates.

Merullo has traveled all across the northern hemisphere and currently lives in Massachusetts with his wife Amanda and their two daughters.

“With six unconventionally religious novels to date, this brave, meditative author has carved a unique niche in American literature.” - Kirkus

"A book so full of heart that pages almost pulse with it. Roland Merullo creates a family of flesh and blood and deep feelings." - Dallas Morning News

"Writing with serene passion and gentle humor, Merullo powerfully reveals both the resiliency and fragility of life and love... This is not a little love story. It is, quite utterly, grand." – Booklist

"Heart-stopping... [Merullo] is simply a throwback to the days when novels by serious writers — Stevenson, Conrad, Greene — often had what are called ‘plots.’ "
– St. Petersburg Times

Behind
the Book


For the past two years, Roland has written an essay each month providing his newsletter subscribers with some back-story to almost all of the 20 books he has published to date.
Links to those essays, entitled "Behind the Book", are now posted on this page.