Joanna Clapps Herman teaches creative writing in the MAW program at Manhattanville College and at the Center for Worker Education, a division of City College of New York. She is the coeditor (with Carol Bonomo Albright) of Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana and (with Lee Gutkind) of Our Roots Are Deep with Passion: Creative Nonfiction Collects New Essays by Italian-American Writers. She lives in New York City.

Acknowledgments
With and Without Words: An Introduction
I. HOMER IN WATERBURY: The Backdrop
My Homer
II. THE UNSAYABLE:The Clapps Family
Peter and His Brothers
Paulie e 'u Gagaron'
My Father Telling Stories
Oak Street
Scialababola
Canio Becomes a Citizen
The Aviglianese Society
Mammanonna
Rocco Lauro and the Sausage
Local Politics
The Boys
The Shop
Walter
Unsayable
III. BEFORE AND AFTER TINFOIL: The Becce Family
The Anarchist Bastard
Rille
Waiting for Vito
Tre' Casc'
Keeping Company
Flesh and Bone
Both Are True
Two
Before and After Tinfoil
Stitching: Our Voices Together
Coffee And
Words and Rags
My Aboriginal Women
Uffa, Jojo, The Monkey
Dropping in on Sandy
Notes of an Unredeemed Catholic
IV. E ' POI ? AND THEN?
'U Bizz' di Creanz': A Piece of Politeness
In Absence
Without My Tribe
The Discourse of un' Propria Papon'
Lotions, Potions, and Solutions
And La La La
Psychic Arrangements