Children of Strangers: Stories Book

The twelve stories in Bukoski's third collection are both a dirge and an homage to a passing way of life for the East End neighborhood of Superior, Wisconsin. "Hurry, our closing is imminent," a priest in the single remaining Catholic church exhorts a Polish émigré seaman at the start of a confession. Without a spiritual or economic focus, Superior's Polish American residents create new places to worship—in a roadside confessional manned by an entrepreneurial junkman, deep below the city's streets in the basement of middle-aged twin spinsters, in a seedy lakeshore cafe where reports of a long-sleeping youngster create a neighborhood tourist attraction.

Despite their failures and the crumbling of their world, Bukoski's characters survive with wry humor, dignity, and grace.