Adventuresome—but Merullo’s fans will still be waiting for that promised third installment of the Revere Beach Trilogy.
The author of two novels set around Boston (In Revere, In Those Days, 2002, etc.) switches to religious allegory.
The working-class Italian characters in Merullo’s earlier books would probably be startled to learn that “there are 8,187 golf courses in heaven” and that “God golfs.” Narrator Herman Fins-Winston is perfectly happy playing a few rounds and relaxing in heaven, but God’s game has developed problems, and He/She enlists Herman to provide a few pointers. That’s what Herman (professional name Hank Winston) did down on Earth as a golf coach after he blew a crucial shot and dropped out of the PGA tour in the 1950s. Some 30 mortal years later, he’s dead but still has unfinished spiritual business; God’s case of “the yips” (the inability to make short putts) is a pretext for getting Herman back to Earth to put him through a series of tests that, if he passes, will enable him to achieve his true destiny as a golf champion. The set-up is strained, but just as the reader is prepared to scream if subjected to one more accepting-the-divine-order-is-like-accepting-golf sermon, or another bizarre set of 18 holes with (for example) Jesus, Mary and Moses, Merullo partly redeems his story of absurdity by applying his wonderful skills of observation and reflection. Playing at elite courses like Augusta National, with God accompanying him in the form of an attractive young wife, Herman encounters compelling characters both human (an abrasive son and worried father) and semi-divine (a marvelously earthy “scout” who may be a reincarnation of Herman’s father). He learns something from each game, especially the one with Satan, and even his lust for God’s female body takes him closer to the “intimacy with the divine intelligence” that he really craves. Some fine prose and a genuine sense of spiritual longing make this better than the premise would suggest.
Adventuresome—but Merullo’s fans will still be waiting for that promised third installment of the Revere Beach Trilogy.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2005
ISBN: 1-56512-501-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.
Christian-fiction writer Martin (The Dead Don’t Dance, not reviewed) chronicles the personal tragedy of a Georgia heart surgeon.
Five years ago in Atlanta, Reese could not save his beloved wife Emma from heart failure, even though the Harvard-trained surgeon became a physician so that he could find a way to fix his childhood sweetheart’s congenitally faulty ticker. He renounced practicing medicine after her death and now lives in quiet anonymity as a boat mechanic on Lake Burton. Across the lake is Emma’s brother Charlie, who was rendered blind on the same desperate night that Reese fought to revive his wife on their kitchen floor. When Reese helps save the life of a seven-year-old local girl named Annie, who turns out to have irreparable heart damage, he is compassionately drawn into her case. He also grows close to Annie’s attractive Aunt Cindy and gradually comes to recognize that the family needs his expertise as a transplant surgeon. Martin displays some impressive knowledge about medical practice and the workings of the heart, but his Christian message is not exactly subtle. “If anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart,” Reese notes of his medical studies. Emma’s letters (kept in a bank vault) quote Bible verse; Charlie elucidates stories of Jesus’ miracles for young Annie; even the napkins at the local bar, The Well, carry passages from the Gospel of John for the benefit of the biker clientele. Moreover, Martin relentlessly hammers home his sentimentality with nature-specific metaphors involving mating cardinals and crying crickets. (Annie sells crickets as well as lemonade to raise money for her heart surgery.) Reese’s habitual muttering of worldly slogans from Milton and Shakespeare (“I am ashes where once I was fire”) doesn’t much cut the cloying piety, and an over-the-top surgical save leaves the reader feeling positively bruised.
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 1-5955-4054-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: WestBow/Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
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