Doctor Galen

Requiem for the Bone Man is 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 unshakable commitment to a vocation and to friends and loved ones.

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 semi-retirement 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.

It started with a dead lady.... That chance discovery, 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.

In Dr. Galen's Little Black Bag, we follow the man that Berto Galen, the boy from the New Jersey Tenements, has become, as he deals with the pleasures, traumas, and tragedies of life in the medical profession. Like R.A. Comunale's Berto's World, it is a collection of stories, but together these stories create a portrait of someone who is deeply dedicated to healing - even as he struggles to heal the hurts and wounds he has suffered over a lifetime.