The Delight of Being Ordinary

February 13, 2017
Drawing from his previous road trip series, Merullo (Breakfast with Buddha) weaves a quirky but uplifting story in which Paolo de Padova, first assistant and cousin to Pope Francis, is asked to whisk away the pope and the visiting Dalai Lama on a clandestine vacation. Paolo’s estranged wife Rosa tags along for the ride, providing the two religious leaders with disguises to prevent their being recognized. They travel the Italian countryside, inadvertently following the path of the last days of Mussolini, raising questions about spiritual progress, identities of religions, corruptibility, and more. The emotional core of the story lies in the dissonance between Paolo’s spiritual ideals and his ordinary state of being. An incessant worrywart who believes he is right, Paolo must learn the greater lessons that the religious leaders and the road trip attempt to impart: how to accept the unexpected, to know that one is not always right, and to be humble enough to realize one’s blind spots. Merullo’s newest is a thoughtful, compassionate, and mature work, a “Christian-
Buddhist-agnostic prayer” to the world, and readers will find a pleasant surprise in its conclusion.

Starred review from January 15, 2017
Another genre-defying installment in Merullo's engaging series of seriocomic religious novels (Dinner with Buddha, 2015, etc.).As the subtitle signals, the leaders of two world religions are our guides on this "road trip," reluctantly accompanied by Pope Francis' cousin and First Assistant Paolo. He has plenty of enemies in the Vatican bureaucracy and is not anxious to give them more ammunition by facilitating his cousin's desire for "an unofficial vacation" with the visiting Dalai Lama. This requires the help of Paolo's estranged wife, Rosa, conveniently the proprietor of a chain of haircutting and makeup salons; she not only crafts their disguises, but voices feminist, secularist doubts about Catholicism and Buddhism while driving a borrowed Maserati with a hair-raising recklessness that alarms her cautious spouse almost more than her challenges to organized religion. Drawing on his apprenticeship as a thriller writer (A Russian Requiem, 1993), Merullo leavens the spiritual questioning with a sharp portrait of emotional and sexual tensions between Paolo and Rosa, plus escalating suspense after news reports cast the disappearance as a kidnapping and Paolo as the perpetrator. The quartet heads toward Lake Como, pausing along the way for biblically-tinged encounters with a shepherd, a prostitute, and a world-weary old movie star wondering why wealth and sex haven't made him happy. 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, and a La Dolce Vita-esque party scene spotlights his ability to discern humanity in the most decadent circumstances. There is a bit too much plot and too few moments of the transcendent serenity that formed the most beautiful passages in The Vatican Waltz (2013) and the Buddha trilogy. Nonetheless, it's both moving and unnerving when key characters from those earlier novels reappear at a climactic encounter forecast by the holy men's dreams to suggest that there may be spiritual hope for our battered world. Lucid, unpretentious fiction spotlighting the drama of trying to make the divine part of our everyday lives.

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March 1, 2017
Once adventurous Paolo de Padova has aged into the cautious first assistant to his cousin, the pope. Just before the Dalai Lama's Vatican visit, His Holiness asks Paolo for a nearly impossible favor: to plan an unofficial vacation that includes the Dalai Lama. Initially Paolo thinks signs of dementia, but the pope's earnestness inspires him to call his estranged wife, Rosa, a renowned hair and makeup artist, who disguises the holy duo as a wealthy tourist and possible rock star. Paolo becomes a boat-people, an immigrant often mistreated by locals, guaranteeing a pope-approved lesson in compassion. Exploring the Italian countryside, the travelers experience the delight of being ordinary, even while chasing holy visions involving Mussolini and mysterious children. Whimsical and irreverent, Merullo's parable meanders through divine doctrines and human relationships, attaining insights where least expected. In spite of one exasperating detailonly the Dalai Lama, the sole non-Caucasian, speaks in broken English, although none of the characters fluently share a languagethis is a charming story celebrating connections over divisions that will especially thrill devotees of Merullo's Buddha Trilogy, including Dinner with Buddha (2015).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)