In Revere, in Those Days

This is the story of the Benedetto family, hardworking Italian Americans from Revere, Massachusetts, a small city on the coastline just north of Boston. Anthony Benedetto is our narrator—introspective and colorful—a smart, good kid born in this country who is trying to figure out how to reconcile his family’s rich, old-world heritage with the unstoppable freight train that is America and American culture.

What Anthony creates for us is an unspoiled America of forty years ago: the feeling of being part of an extended family of grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins; the feeling of being surrounded by an intense loyalty and vibrant warmth that extend into the neighborhood and the community. Fixing place, time, and sensibilities with uncanny accuracy and grace, Anthony introduces us to unforgettable men and women who struggle toward decency and kindness, and who live out their difficult lives with an extraordinary dignity.

When Anthony’s parents are tragically killed, the Benedetto family pulls him out of the swamp of despair with a desperate, old-world love. As the New World calls to him, he gradually grows up and away from Revere but finds that it is as much a part of him as his eye color and the size of his hands. His eventual realizations—that geography is destiny, that suffering is universal, and that he is able to pass on, to his own children, the priceless Benedetto inheritance of warmth and caring—form the essence of who he becomes as a man.

The Benedetto family’s story, a tale of sorrow, hope, and redemption, gives us a lost America and a fading Italian American culture that lie beyond the clichés. In Revere, In Those Days is a hauntingly beautiful novel by a graceful and extremely talented writer.

From the Hardcover edition.

Anthony Benedetto, a young boy in a large extended Italian-American family, describes growing up in the working-class community of Revere, Massachusetts, but his idyllic and charmed youth is changed forever by the tragic deaths of his parents, in a coming-of-age story. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

In this richly evocative novel--the moving story of one boy's coming of age--acclaimed author Roland Merullo will make you nostalgic for a small Massachusetts city called Revere even if you've never been there. Providing a window into an unspoiled America of forty years ago, In Revere welcomes you to the fiercely loyal and devoted Italian-American family of the Benedettos.

Although he was orphaned as a child, young Anthony Benedetto was always surrounded by family, and the vibrant warmth of the Revere community. His Uncle Peter, a former Golden Gloves boxer whose days of glory were behind him, believed Tonio was bound for great things. So did his daughter Rosie, Tonio's favorite cousin, who would take many wrong turns--away from Tonio--through adolescence. His gentle grandparents, who took him in, encouraged him to claim a future outside of Revere, but the warm, unconditional love of his family, and the smells and sounds of Revere stay with him forever.

Roland Merullo is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Brown University. He has written for Newsweek, Forbes FYI, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and many other publications. He is the author of three previous, highly praised novels, the most recent of which, Revere Beach Boulevard, was a finalist for the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. He lives with his wife and two children in western Massachusetts.

From the Hardcover edition.