On April 16, 1973, two members of LING560 interviewed Mary Costa, a 78-year-old resident of the South Philadelphia neighborhood that we were studying. It was not the usual interview with a first acquaintance. Both Joan Fayer and Bill Inverso were in their thirties, mature members of the same community. They had known Mrs. Costa for some time and were keenly attuned to the appropriate patterns of interaction and response. For this reason, the narrative we are about to consider shows more back channel feedback. Material in single parentheses is spoken by Joan, the leading participant at that point, and the utterances of Bill are given in double parentheses.

The narrative is a long one, divided here into nine episodes. The death of Mary's youngest daughter, Marie, is the most reportable event. It is not presented as given as in Chapter 8, but occurs in Episode 3. Yet the chief focus of the narrative is the reporting of that event as it flows through Episodes 5–9, which display the effects of that information as it passes in successive waves through sections of the community.