Roland Merullo | |
---|---|
Born |
Boston, Massachusetts |
September 19, 1953
Occupation | novelist, essayist, memoirist |
Nationality | United States |
Period | 1980 - present |
Genre | fiction, memoir, essay |
Literary movement | popular, literary, spiritual |
Roland Merullo (born September 19, 1953) is an American author who writes novels, essays and memoir. His best-known works are the novels Breakfast with Buddha, In Revere, In Those Days, A Little Love Story, Revere Beach Boulevard and the memoir Revere Beach Elegy. His books have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, German, Chinese, and Croatian.
Merullo was born in Boston and raised in Revere, Massachusetts. His father, Roland (Orlando) was a civil engineer who worked for state government and was named personnel secretary by Christian Herter, governor of Massachusetts. He attended Suffolk Law School, passed the Bar at the age of sixty and became an attorney. Eileen, his mother, was a physical therapist who worked at Walter Reed Army Hospital with amputees injured in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Later, she became a science teacher and taught at the middle school level for 25 years. He has two brothers, Steve and Ken.
Merullo earned his high school degree from Phillips Exeter Academy. After having initially enrolled as an undergraduate at Boston University, he received a B.A. and an M.A. (in Russian Language and Literature) from Brown University. Merullo spent time in Micronesia during a stint with the Peace Corps, worked in the former Soviet Union for the United States Information Agency and was employed as a cab driver and carpenter. He taught creative writing at Bennington College and Amherst College, and was a writer in residence at Miami Dade Colleges and North Shore Community College. He met Amanda Stearns, a photographer, while enrolled at Brown. They began dating in 1978 and were married in the fall of 1979. After living in Vermont for several years, the couple settled in western Massachusetts. They have two daughters: Alexandra and Juliana.