Customer Reviews

Revere Beach Boulevard: A Novel

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I did not want this book to end. I was engaged with each of the characters as if they were my own family. Muerllo's descriptions of sights, sounds, and feelings allowed me to get lost in the places and with the people he was describing. I can't wait for the next two books of this Trilogy to appear. I grew up in Marblehead and Revere Beach was forbidden to us as nice WASP girls, so of course we went there whenever we could in the 50's and 60's. How wonderful to see it brought to life by one of the best craftsman I have ever read.

This is a wonderful book. The authenticity of this world is perfectly rendered, and this rendition is in the voice, the characters, and most of all in the author's unrelenting love for this world and these characters. Revere Beach Boulevard is one of those books that has been so perfectly realized by its author that the reader feels privileged to have been this intimate with a world he does not know. Surely, this sense of privilege is one of the things that makes this book so successful. It has a verisimilitude that is uncanny.

Of course the character of the gambler is the best of what is a number of successes, and this is so because not only is the pleasure of gambling, the beauty and attraction of it made real, but the workings of the man's mind are so perfectly revealed as to be something we are watching, something that we know, rather than something we are reading. The book is exciting, from the point of view of ordinary story telling, and then the gangsters seem to be appallingly real, too.

In trying to praise a book like this, one immediately runs up against the fact that the vocabulary of praise is so run down, or just so overused that it is difficult to say, in any succinct manner, how great an accomplishment this book really is. But it is all those things one usually says, brilliant, compelling, moving, true, inspired, and, of course, the work of a great talent fully in control of a subject.

While I'm rarely drawn to novels about the underworld (I'm the only person in the U.S. who hasn't seen The Godfather!), I somehow chose this book over another on a vacation trip to the bookstore a few months ago. What a serendipitous find -- truly believable characters in a milieu that has been done to death in the pop media. The main character, Peter, is a likable sort who has slipped over the line and can't find his way back. His supportive and confused parents are of the rock-solid generation that we too often take for granted, both as parents and neighbors. The tenderness between them despite their own differences is extraordinary. The multiple-points-of-view manner of telling the story is handled masterfully; not for a second do you wonder who is speaking, so distinct is each character. Well done, Mr. Merullo. I look forward to the 2nd and 3rd parts of this trilogy with much anticipation. Don't keep me waiting too long!

This novel is very easy reading. Despite a great story, plot and setting I appreciated the cleverness and manner with which it was written. The 65 short chapters made it easy for me to read seemingly at every moment. I kept thinking "Oh just one more chapter" before I would put it down. Each chapter seemed to begin with a different person and setting. The reader has to try and discern "who's talking, and where are we now" at almost every chapter change. I like this because it was as if I was figuring out a puzzle with each chapter change. It also kept my interest. I found the writing rich in descriptive detail. I felt as I was there in the story many times. I also enjoyed the way that the author repeatedly describes small details of an event, thought or happening. The novel also has many flashbacks of nostagia (I don't mean Revere) wherein the characters look back upon their lives in retrospect and I too found myself emotionally looking back upon some of my most memorable and precious moments. There is lots of despair, distrust, fanatical egos, love, anger and sadness. This is a "must read" for enjoyment. I look forward to the remaining works of the trilogy.

This book represents the best of both worlds: a suspenseful novel that is better than "Mystic River" and an eloquent, beautifully crafted piece of literature. Merullo's skill at telling the story clearly, while going back and forth among different characters' points of view yet still moving the plot forward is masterful!

Revere Beach Boulevard is my favorite book of 1998. I think everyone can relate to one or more of the characters and some how find yourself thinking about them even after you've put the book down for the night.The book was written in first person narrative for each character. Its amazing how you begin to identify each character after only a few words .

A beautifully written tale that perfectly evokes the Italian community of Revere, Mass.

I graduated from Revere High School in 1950 and I came to this book for its title, thinking how much fun it would be to read a book about my old hometown, wondering if he was going to mention Lindy Doherty, Hank Price, Hal O'Day, Joe Stahl, Sally and Vito, Dorothy Ann Perotti, Paul Kennealy, Charlie Collela, and all the rest of the gang at the Boulevard Theatre, where I hung out for three years in the late 1940s (In Red Hook, New York, you get to miss those people sometimes.)

But "Revere Beach Boulevard" is more than a book about Revere. Much more. It is about people in a town, in a neighborhood and in the families that make up the neighborhood and the town. And while there was no mention of my friends by name, their spirit is in the book, which is filled with characters all readers will be affected by. It is, I think, above all, a powerfully written, emotional book, hard to put down, as some others have said in their reviews. I'm going to loan it to my children. I'm sure they will love it, as I did, for its wonderful people. You can't read a book for better reasons.

I started reading this because I was born and raised in Revere. I soon realized that Roland Merullo is a great talent. This book was the best I've read in years. The dialog rings true. Growing up in Revere, there were always stories about what mobsters did when a loan wasn't paid. My brother told me about a pharmacist who couldn't pay back a loan shark. He got off easy. He was, "merely", thrown down a flight of stairs and suffered a broken leg. Less lucky was a World War II soldier, who after returning to Revere, started dabbling in real estate. After getting in over his head, he took a loan from the Mafia. He was later found dead on the grass near a highway.

This is really a wonderful book. Merullo manages to give the reader a real multi-dimensional view of all the characters with short chapters from the point of view of practically everyone in the story. At the sametime he creates a plot as complex and exciting as a thriller. In addition he gives a real and complex view of a part of American urban culture that is usually portrayed only as stereotypes. Intellectually, socially, emotionally, it's a hell of a good book.