What got you interested in baseball and how is this book different from other books on the subject?

My father who loved baseball, had me swinging a bat when I was 3 years old. I played baseball continually, Little League, High School, College, Summer Leagues and Senior leagues until I was about 35. So, I have a lifelong love of the game. This  is not a book about baseball, it is not a book about poetry. It is first and foremost a love story. Not a romance novel, a love story. But that love story is built upon and reinforced by the love for the game and the love of poetry. For Luca in the story, one cannot be separated from the other. They are all intertwined. I don’t believe that any other book has ever combined these three things in this way. I think that is a key part about what makes this book unique…..

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BY ADAM KLUGER

Tell us about the origin of the idea for the novel Einstein’s Desk. Where did that originate? DJM: The idea sprang from the brain of my brother Dr. Robert Melillo. Aside from being a world renowned and recognized expert on the functioning of the human brain, he is also a huge Albert Einstein fan. Dr. Einstein has been an inspiration for him since he was a kid. So, much like Ian in the story, he read all that he could about Einstein growing up and was truly fascinated by the picture taken by Life Magazine of Einstein’s Desk and the rest of his office on the day he died. Rob was haunted by the question, did anybody really check what he was working on before he died? Was anything taken from his desk or office before the authorities got there? What if I could read everything that was there on that desk by enlarging the picture of the desk… stuff like that. That group of “what if” questions eventually blossomed into the concept for the book……