The Road to Missoula is an engrossing story of an Italian immigrant family, portraying the challenges, joys, and triumphs they face from the time of their arrival at Ellis Island at the beginning of the 20th century and through the ensuing decades as they learn to balance their Italian cultural heritage with the ways of their new home in America. Recounting childhoods, marriages, love, death, and the occasional brush with the law, the story interweaves significant and true world political events of the time with their traumatic, exciting and suspenseful effects on the family. It personalizes cultural and religious clashes, and provides insight into ethnic identity crises and solutions. The Road to Missoula skillfully explores through one family's experience the human emotions and drives we all share—love, anger, jealousy, fear, ambition, disappointment, adventure, and happiness.