Children of Strangers - Tapa blanda

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 emigre seaman at the start of a confession. Without a spiritual or economic focus, Superior's Polish American residents create new places to worshipin 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."

The grandson of Polish immigrants, ANTHONY BUKOSKI grew up in Superior, Wisconsin. He has published two prize-winning collections, "Twelve ""Below"" Zero" and "Children of Strangers." Bukoski teaches English at the University of WisconsinSuperior and lives in the country outside of town. In 1997 he was featured in the PBS video "A Sense of Place: A Portrait of Three Midwestern Writers.""