Joe Amato is the author of two books of literary criticism and theory, Industrial Poetics: Demo Tracks for a Mobile Culture and Bookend: Anatomies of a Virtual Self; four volumes of poetry, Pain Plus Thyme, Under Virga, Finger Exorcised, and Symptoms of a Finer Age; and a novel, Big Man with a Shovel. He is a native of Syracuse, New York.

Part I - Bildung

1. Winter Rat

2. Landscaping

3. Wicked Piss

4. Games People Play

5. The Flying Pork Chops and Other Adventures in Craft and Cuisine

6 Linkage
Part II - Rebuilding

7. Salt City

8. Just Produce: A Meditation on Time & Materials, Past & Present

9. Primitive Roots

10. Say-Cursed Susan B. Anthonies

11. Notes toward a Supreme Fiction

Epilogue: Variable Cloudiness, Chance of Precipitation 50%
Acknowledgments