Running at Hialeah

Nobody told retired New York City bus driver Bernie Buccellato you can’t go home again.

So, with blissful impulse, this endearing Pulcinella starts on a journey to redeem his past on a reckless escapade in South Florida. Determined to reclaim his family home and deposit his father’s cremains at the finish line of Hialeah racetrack, he takes us on a voyage of redemption that is sure to keep readers laughing and crying.  

In this semi-autobiographical tale, Marinelli purges the demons of youth with a tale of self-discovery.

Don Marinelli, like the protagonist of this novel, is an Italian American born and bred in Brooklyn, New York, who, like Bernie Buccellato, experienced in his youth a sudden, unexpected, and traumatic relocation to Hialeah, Florida. The comparisons, however, end there.

Marinelli has been an educator and university professor for over forty years. He has taught at Carnegie Mellon, Arizona State University, Columbia University, and various other colleges and universities. He is co-founder of the renowned Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center, one of the first true right brain/left brain initiatives in higher education.

He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.