“The women were women then. They stuck up for each other. A matriarchy. My aunt yelled a lot like the boss. My mother, more quiet, kept the peace, behind the scenes, pulling the strings.”
The Train Runner
Medford Square 1946 - Photo credit: Medford Historical Society
Featured Works
The Train Runner
This story follows a young boy’s expulsion from parochial school, gambling, stealing, selling discarded wares for pennies, interludes with burlesque dancers at the Old Howard Theatre, and surviving the sanguinary streets of Boston during the Great Depression.
The Train Runner is an autofiction project and a collaboration with my 96-year-old father, a first-generation Italian-American born in East Boston in 1928; his parents emigrated from Sicily. He describes his father as friendly and his mother as formidable. The characters and events are inspired by my father's unconventional childhood, growing up in Medford and its complicated ties to the Mafia.
Split - A Novel
It’s May 1988. Two years after her parents’ deaths, grief-stricken Isabel Pope, a 27-year-old human rights attorney, abandons her Boston law practice for Croatia—her childhood summer haven—accepting a temporary university teaching position. She arrives ahead of the country’s first democratic elections in half a century, hoping to witness this historic transformation.
Reunited with old friends, Isabel becomes dangerously entangled when she falls for two men—one Croatian, one Bosnian—as ethnic divisions tear the nation apart. When democracy dissolves into war, personal passions collide with political allegiances. With betrayal everywhere, Isabel must navigate treacherous international politics to find her friends, believed to be trapped in Eastern Mostar’s ghetto, while fighting for her freedom and a way home. If she survives.
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A contemporary historical fiction novel for adult readers, set in the former Yugoslavia, this story is based on actual events of the Bosnian War and my stays in the region that spanned seven years from 1990 through 1996.
Accidental Pilgrim
Taken from my travel journals, Accidental Pilgrim tells the story of a month-long overseas journey with my mother in tow for her to fulfill a dream pilgrimage in the Balkans, followed by a rattled stay with relatives in the tiny Italian village where her father was born and raised.
First scribbled on the pages of my journal, entitled, “Un mese con la mamma,” are scenes filled with humor, humility, and heartache. If you’ve ever globetrotted with your untraveled mother to foreign countries, then you capisce. Between the mountains and memories, what began as daughterly duty unfolded into a chronicle of tangled roots and revelations.
The Art of God
Sacred Paintings and Devotions in the Life of Artist Rose Marie Salvi Puma
The Art of God is a photographic tribute that pairs my mother's devotional paintings with the spiritual stories behind Catholic sacred art. Each chapter centers on one of her sacred paintings—from her reproductions of Rembrandt to her encounters with miraculous images, such as the Tilma of Guadalupe and the Divine Mercy image given to St. Faustina—exploring the history and theology behind these powerful devotions.
Rose’s artistic journey interweaves with remarkable family stories: my grandfather Francesco's WWII vow to build a church in Italy, D-Day hero Noël Dube's backyard Fatima shrine that drew thousands of pilgrims, and the providence of meeting my adopted son for the first time on December 12—the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Rose was a professional artist whose sacred paintings adorn churches across the country; many are life-size, including a portrait of St. Jude, which she donated to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in 1959. Written after her 2022 passing, this book preserves her witness for readers who need to see the invisible made visible before they can believe. Across generations, faith demands something tangible: not merely belief, but stone and canvas and paint.