by Steve Pfarrer
THE DELIGHT OF BEING ORDINARY
By Roland Merullo
Doubleday
rolandmerullo.com
Valley writer Roland Merullo, an award-winning author of more than 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, has never hesitated to tackle different genres: thrillers, love stories, travelogues and, increasingly, spiritual inquiry.
Consider Merullo’s trio of novels that began with 2007’s “Breakfast With Buddha,” which feature a middle-aged American man and a part-Russian guru on extended road trips in the U.S.
And in 2013’s “Vatican Waltz,” Merullo fashioned a tale of an American woman who believes God has called her to become the first female Catholic priest.
In an introduction to his newest novel, “The Delight of Being Ordinary,” Merullo lays out his basic ground rules for writing about such themes.
“I am inclined to put my trust in spiritual figures who show a sense of humor,” he writes, “rather than those who take everything — including themselves — with a miserable seriousness.”
Thus we have “The Delight of Being Ordinary,” which imagines Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama shedding their robes and taking a road trip/vacation in Italy incognito.
It begins with His Holiness telling Paolo dePadova, his nervous cousin and personal assistant — and the book’s narrator — that his duties have begun to wear him down.
“I’m troubled. I feel … lately I’ve been feeling, I don’t know … soffocato. Stifled. Constrained…. If I wanted to, say … take an unofficial vacation … three days, four days at the most … could you work out the logistics?”
Giving his official duties and identity, the slip is also a means for the pope to apologize to the Dalai Lama, whose previous visit to Rome Francis had ignored so as not to upset the Chinese. Now, with Buddhism’s biggest figure back in town — and game for some adventure himself — the two holy men are off.
Merullo makes it a comic as well as a spiritual journey, as the two men slip into disguises and travel with Paolo and his estranged wife, Rosa, with Rosa at the wheel of an expensive Maserati sedan (“I like this car very much!” says the Dalai Lama).
It’s not exactly an inconspicuous ride, which becomes an issue when news reports suggest Paolo has kidnapped the pope.
As the tension rises, the odd quartet head to northern Italy near the Alps. Along the way, they meet and talk to a number of characters — a shepherd, a prostitute, a burned-out old movie star — and have broad discussions of spiritual issues. Paolo and Rosa also try to find their way to some kind of rapprochement.
“Admirers of previous volumes will recognize Merullo’s knack for depicting goodness without treacle in his deft portraits of the pope and the Dalai Lama,” writes Kirkus Reviews of the new novel.
The review adds that the book also suggests “there may be spiritual hope for our battered world.”
HISTORY OF THE AMHERST WOMEN’S CLUB, 1893-2016
By Libby Klekowski
Off the Common Books
Libby Klekowski, who with her husband, Edward, has written two books and made two documentaries on the American experience in WWI, here tackles a subject closer to home: The Amherst Women’s Club.
Klekowski, of Leverett, notes that the club traces it origins to the beginning of the U.S. Women’s Rights Movement in 1848. As an offshoot of the push to win the right to vote, inherit property and establish credit, women began opening clubs around the country to discuss these issues and pursue additional education.
Klekowski, who has served in many positions in the Amherst Women’s Club, including president, notes that 11 Amherst women — including Mabel Loomis Todd, a friend of Emily Dickinson — started the club in 1893, meeting at first in places such as the Unitarian Church on North Pleasant Street before inheriting their permanent home, the 153-year-old Leonard Mills house on Main Street, in 1922.
Her history includes an account of some of the community-service projects the club has been involved with, as well as profiles of three Amherst women with close connections to the club who served in various capacities, such as aiding refugees, in France during WWI.
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.