Revere Beach Boulevard: A Novel - Hardcover

Merullo, Roland

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805060057 ISBN 13: 9780805060058

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 1998

Synopsis

Vittorio (Vito) and Peter Imbesalacqua, father and son, opposites in so many ways, have never had an easy time with each other. From the moment Vito arrived in the United States from Italy in 1936 he did his best to live as a good man--hard-working, deeply-religious, frugal and honest. Peter, on the other hand, now forty years old, his real-estate business in shambles, has bent the rules and battled a gambling addiction for most of his adult life. With his family's help, he always just succeeded in averting disaster, until now. Revere Beach Boulevard--a novel both literary and suspenseful--tells the story of a family that rallies around an errant son, even as a dark secret that has blighted all their lives comes to the surface. For Peter it means having the courage to stand up to Eddie Crevine, a Mafia thug to whom he is in debt and who now threatens his life. For Peter's sister, Joanna, it means admitting that she shares some of her brother's anger at their parents. For Vito and his wife, Lucy, it involves dealing with the aftereffects of a youthful indiscretion, a moment of unchecked passion that changed all of their lives in ways that can never be undone. Revere Beach Boulevard is a rich and heartfelt novel that looks deeply into the secret places in men and women's hearts, places only great fiction can reveal.

About this title

About the Author

Roland Merullo is author of two previous novels, Leaving Losapas and A Russian Requiem. He teaches writing at Bennington College and lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and daughter.

Reviews

He invents a world that mirrors our world in all of its mystery. And he does it in language so happily inventive and precise and musical, and plots it so masterfully, that you are reluctant to emerge from his literary dream.

Suffocating secrets prey upon family love and loyalty in this sympathetically drawn, though ultimately lumbering first volume of a projected Revere Beach Trilogy. Over the course of one week, Merullo (Leaving Losapos) focuses on the Imbesalacqua family and its life among the Italian-Americans of Boston's North End. Vito, who came to America in 1936, believed in hard work, religion, frugality, honesty and the sanctity of the family, but he has lived to see most of his dreams compromised and unfulfilled. His wife, Lucy, is now dying, and Vito still frets over his decades-old infidelity to her. Peter, their disappointing son, grapples with his failing real estate business and a gambling addiction. He owes a debt of life-threatening proportions to a mob-connected loan shark, Eddie Crevine, who is being investigated by Vito's daughter, Joanna, a famous TV news anchorwoman with secrets of her own. Alfonse Romano, a Revere police captain, also battles some private demons as he tries to help the family save Peter from himself. The author was raised in Revere and clearly possesses a heartfelt awareness of the unique rhythms of its Italian-American community. Vito, in particular, is a richly drawn character, balancing wisdom with naivete while resisting stereotype. The other first-person narrators (of which there are many) are less distinctive, though Peter's gambling sequences are deftly handled. Unfortunately, Merullo fails in his attempt to negotiate a treacherous middle ground between the literary and suspense novel forms. The dramatic elements are merely commonplace, thus sabotaging any chance for a surprise denouement. The result is a high-stakes family melodrama with a curiously small payoff. Editor, Tracy Brown; agent, Cynthia Cannell Literary Agency.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In Revere Beach, Massachusetts, an old priest chronicles four days in the lives of a family he knows and loves. At the center of his story is Peter Imbesalaqua, whose innate charm, capacity for self-delusion, and gambling addiction are all about to come undone. His father is watching his mother die; his sister is a local TV news personality; a cast of cops, neighbors, lovers, loan sharks, and other high-and lowlifes fill out the cast. Chapters alternate points of view among the many characters--it is a tribute to Merullo's skill that although the voices aren't labeled, we are never in doubt about who we are hearing. The real gift here is Merullo's unerring ear, not only for the cadences of Italian American speech but for the textures that those speech patterns reveal, including faith, fatalism, the keeping of secrets, and care for what is on the table and who is around it. This novel will create a shiver in the hearts of Italian American readers and gather up those who aren't in a rush of empathy. This purports to be the first of a trilogy, and its sequels are as good to look forward to as peaches in red wine. GraceAnne A. DeCandido

The author of Leaving Losapas (LJ 12/90) and A Russian Requiem (LJ 8/93) embarks here on "The Revere Beach Trilogy." Set over four days in August in a down-and-out Boston beach suburb, this story is told in the alternating voices of several members of the Imbesalacqua family: mother Lucy, in the final throes of cancer; daughter Joanna, grappling with coming out to her family and with her brother's chronic gambling; father Vito, trying to save his son, Peter, and acknowledge another son; and Peter himself, the central character, drawn deeper into deceit, debt, and danger as he tries to extricate himself from the clutches of a Mafia loan shark. Occasional voices of other characters give added perspective, but it is the central characters who propel the story as they examine the past and try to alter its influence on the present. One flaw perhaps is that it is hard to accept Peter's stuttering: he is depicted as a consummate salesman, a glib and fluid liar, and a charmer. Nevertheless, this is an impressive start to the trilogy, combining intricate story lines and fluid writing. Highly recommended.?Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805060057
• ISBN 13: 9780805060058
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320