Author

R.A. Comunale, M.D.

Robert. A. Comunale (R.A. Comunale) is a retired physician who for half a century maintained a family practice and a specialty in aviation medicine out of his home office in McLean, Virginia.

Also during his tenure, he enjoyed writing, gardening, electronics, pounding on a piano, and yelling at his dimwitted cat. As always, he describes himself as an eccentric and iconoclast.

Also as always, the cat has provided no comment.

TaBois Galerie was honored to hold several book signings for Dr. Comunale, who is an award-winning author. His support of the Galerie and IASPAW is very much appreciated.

Please order his books from Amazon using the links below and you are guaranteed a good read!

Over the past fifteen years, R.A. Comunale has enthralled a growing throng of loyal readers with tales of his alter ego, Robert Galen, aka Berto, who grew from a young lad on the streets of an urban New Jersey neighborhood to a bear-sized man, first treating patients in his unique family medical practice, then moving to a mountaintop retreat called SAFEHAVEN with his old friend Edison, his wise and tolerant wife Nancy, and three Cuban refugee children the oldsters adopted and raised as their own.

Full of passion, pathos and humor, Comunale's novels and short-story collections have explored the full spectrum of the human condition.

Now a COVID survivor, he has focused his sharp literary eye on that difficult experience, further recollections of his half-century in medicine and a few lingering memories of SAFEHAVEN. Galen's 30 presents, literally, 30 compelling stories from Order Galen’s 30 a fine and beloved writer.

Order Galen’s 30

Requiem for the Bone Man is a moving, compelling first novel, told with the assurance and skill of a born storyteller. It is also a meditation on the art of healing, as seen in the adventures of its unforgettable central character, Dr. Robert Galen.

From his youth as a street-smart son of immigrants to his career as a gifted physician, Galen is tough-minded yet compassionate. Above all, he is deeply human, willing to risk the pain of loss and failure that inevitably comes to those with an unshakeable commitment to a vocation and to friends and loved ones.

Order Requiem for the Bone Man

The sequel to R. A. Comunale’s highly praised first novel Requiem for the Bone Man follows the continuing story of Dr. Robert Galen and his friends, Robert and Nancy Edison, as they adjust to semiretirement on a mountaintop in northeastern Pennsylvania, raising and caring for the three orphaned Hidalgo children they rescued and adopted. Along the way, the six residents of the mountain interact with a variety of individuals human and animal who also are seeking sanctuary, and even redemption, on the property that becomes known as Safehaven.

In ways mystical, magical, and even heroic, Comunale once again envelops readers in a fictional world that is often harrowing, but always captivating.

Order The Legend of Safehaven

The chance discovery of a dead woman on a dingy river bank in New Jersey changed the life of 8-year-old Robert Galen forever; it propelled him into a lifelong study of medicine, beginning under the sage counsel of his mentor, Dr. Agnelli. In turn, his medical career led him to two ill-fated marriages and one would-be recaptured romance. Then, alone and in near despair, Galen found a new reason for being, in his old friend Bob Edison, along with his patient wife, Nancy, and in the three, orphaned Hidalgo children, whom he rescued from the wrath of a hurricane. Together, the six and a host of other injured souls attained solace living at Safehaven, the often- miraculous refuge perched on the side of a mountain in the endless hills of northeastern Pennsylvania. R.A. Comunale chronicled this deeply human saga in his first two novels, Requiem for the Bone Man and The Legend of Safehaven, both of which won him widespread praise for his vivid characters and sharp insights into the human condition.

Now, in the long-anticipated third installment of the series, Comunale brings the residents of Safehaven together once more, perhaps for the last time.

Order Clover

These stories follow Dr. Robert Galen, aka Berto, as he traverses the memories of the tenement neighborhood of his youth and those that reside there. Meet the Mad Russian why does he always carry a meat cleaver whenever he goes to get a shave from Thomas the barber? Then there’s Giuseppe Joe the Junkman who roams through a neighborhood too poor to throw anything away. There are the Old Guys, veterans of the Great War, one a radio repairman who returned home with shell shock, the other a shoemaker with nothing below the waist. There’s Mr. Buck, the clockmaker, who shares a secret with his young apprentice. There’s the Candy Lady, who isn’t so sweet, and the little Jewish dentist who defeated the Nazis but falls victim to Cupid s arrow from a most unexpected direction. Be sure to meet Sal, Tomas, and Angie, Berto s pals who help him confront life s greatest mystery: the opposite sex. And above all there is his mentor, Dr. Agnelli, who along with a dead lady sets Berto along his life's path.

Come and meet them and all of the unforgettable denizens of Berto's world.

Order Berto's World

In Dr. Galen s Little Black Bag, we follow the man that Berto Galen has become, as he deals with the pleasures, traumas, and tragedies of life in the medical profession.

Like Berto's World, it is a collection of stories, but together those stories create a portrait of someone who is deeply dedicated to healing even as he struggles to heal the hurts and wounds that he has suffered over his own lifetime.

Order Dr. Galen's Little Black Bag