As in his earlier works, the dozen stories in Bukoski s fifth collection depict the joys and woes of the Polish American immigrant families living either in the East End of Superior, Wisconsin, or in south Louisiana, where some Poles migrated to work the cane fields. Bukoski s lower middle-class families are sustained by their neighborhood (now in decline), by the Polish fraternal lodge, by their parochial school training, and, in some cases, by their abiding spiritual faith"