QUINCY − Louis Trubiano's long-sought-after retirement project started years ago with his maternal grandfather, Luigi Pica, who came here from Italy in 1914, worked at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy his whole adult life and was extremely proud of his American citizenship, granted in 1930.
"He was very stoic, a solid, hard-working guy," Trubiano said.
Pica was a pipefitter who did a number of other shipyard jobs, became a foreman, retired in 1965 and owned a four-family house in Quincy Point where Trubiano lived for several years as a small boy.
He recalls his grandfather as someone who rarely laughed and "always dressed immaculately and had high standards."
Growing up in an Italian neighborhood in Quincy
More than 30 years ago, Trubiano, now 73, first got the idea of writing a novel about his grandfather and growing up a second-generation Italian American in a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Quincy.
At the time, Trubiano owned a full-service advertising and marketing agency, Louis & Co., in Braintree; was active in the South Shore Chamber of Commerce, where he would later become chairman; was raising three daughters, Lisa, Laura and Sara; and was very busy in civic affairs.
"Life got in the way of the book, but it was always there," Trubiano said. "It was germinating in my head a long time. It wasn't until I retired in 2019 that I forced myself to sit down and put all the pieces − my notes and the historical research − together.
"It was No. 1 on my bucket list and became my passion project."
The result, after two years of "solitary endeavor" in his Canton home basement office, is Trubiano's first novel.
"What Once Was Promised," described as a work of historical fiction that follows the trials and triumphs of an Italian immigrant family in early 20th-century Boston, has been released by MindStir Media, a small, independent publishing company in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and is available online.
The North End of Boston is full of stories
This 257-page novel tells the story of a multigenerational Italian family whose members navigate the turmoil and quickly changing landscape of the North End of Boston.
For Trubiano, this now gentrified neighborhood stands out as historically cut off from the rest of the city by its own culture and traditions, "truly a Little Italy." Though living on the South Shore, he also owns a condominium in the North End.
While the main character is very loosely based on his own family, the others − two young Italian immigrants and one American-born Italian − are figments of his imagination.
"I wanted to tell a story and for it to be exciting," he said.
He visualized his maternal grandfather as he wrote about the main character, Domenic, who immigrates to America from the same small town, Torre de' Passeri, in Italy, at the same age, aboard the same ship, as Luigi Pica did.
Trubiano moved the family setting from Quincy to the North End to give the novel more appeal, especially because he finds Boston history so compelling.
"I have always loved reading history," he said, and he has been researching Boston's political and civic life for some 50 years, finding "no place had more iconic events than the North End."
Meet the Mafia, police corruption and Italian anarchists
His characters' lives become entangled in themes of discrimination, the fledgling Boston Mafia, police power grabs, corruption and Italian anarchists.
For Trubiano, who majored in English in college, the menu was irresistible. It includes a police station bombing in 1916, the flu of 1918, which especially hit immigrants, the molasses flood of 1919 and the Sacco and Vanzetti execution in 1927.
As Kirkus Reviews notes, “the city of Boston is as much a character as the human characters."
Louis Trubiano was born in Quincy City Hospital and spent his early years living next to other family members in the four-family house on Elm Street in Quincy Point that his grandfather owned.
"The whole neighborhood was like one big family, everyone knew everyone, and it wasn't until I went to kindergarten that I found out everyone wasn't Italian," he said.
By high school, his growing family had moved to Wollaston and he graduated in 1969 from North Quincy High School.
He is a proud member of the NQHS Football Hall of Fame and was able to become the first in his family to go to college when he was offered a football scholarship to the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, Class of 1973.
He played football for the Yellow Jackets there for four years, loved his college experience, and was planning to go to graduate school in journalism at American University in Washington but first spent a summer at home.
A touchdown at the QHS/NQHS 1967 Thanksgiving football game
During that summer, his plans changed. He found a job putting out a newsletter for the South Shore Chamber of Commerce and met his future wife, Phyllis Doherty, who was also a 1969 graduate of North Quincy High School. They didn't really know each other until that summer.
They were married eight years later in 1980. He had earned a master's degree in mass communications from Boston University and was working for a Boston advertising agency as a copywriter and then account manager.
In 1991, he launched his own full-service advertising and marketing agency, Louis & Co., in Braintree, retiring at age 70 in December 2020.
After some 40 years in the advertising field, he felt it was time to settle down to write.
"It gave me the time that it required to do it correctly," he said.
In a family story, you can't forget James Michael Curley
A lot of the story was driven by his research; real events drove the narrative.
"I would learn something new about the North End and want to work it into the book," he said. Former Boston Mayor James Michael Curley dominated many scenes.
"My idea was to tell a story from a universal perspective of how important family and community are."
In contrasting Quincy with the North End of Boston, he said, "I had heard a lot of stories growing up about how different it was way back then (the early 1900s) in Quincy − and how much faster assimilation was then for people who came to this country."
He has had many experiences with different ethnic groups in Quincy, living next door to one another, and the city remains a part of his life, "where my roots are."
His maternal grandfather was one of the founding members of the Torre de' Passeri Club on Washington Street and he remains a member today, plays bocce there Wednesday evenings, and has also played basketball with friends in Quincy for 50 years.
His father and four uncles all served in World War II
In 2016, Trubiano reached out to city political leaders and played a role in having the intersection of Lancaster and Fowler streets in Quincy dedicated to his father, Francis, and four uncles in recognition of their service in World War II.
He and his wife, Phyllis, have three daughters and six grandchildren who all live within 10 minutes of their Canton home.
Trubiano has a refreshing, candid way of describing situations. In retirement, he said, he and Phyllis have especially enjoyed being part of the lives of their grandchildren, who all were born within the past several years.
"I've seen what my wife looks like when she is really happy all the time," he said.
The book has received favorable reviews online and is selling beyond initial publishing expectations on Amazon.
For all of his business and civic activities, Trubiano said, "My two greatest accomplishments are scoring a touchdown at the 1967 North Quincy-Quincy Thanksgiving football game and publishing this book."
Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com.
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