Carroll's plays have been produced at the Berkshire Theater Festival and at Boston's Next Move Theater. In 1976 he published his first novel, "Madonna Red", which was followed by ten others. He has written for numerous publications, including "The New Yorker "and The Atlantic. His op-ed column appeared weekly in "The Boston Globe" for twenty-three years (1992-2015). He won the 1996 National Book Award for Nonfiction for "An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us", a memoir about the Vietnam War and his relationships with his father, the American military, and the Catholic Church.