Twelve Below Zero

Mr. Bukoski is a sure-handed, lyrical writer. –The New York Times Book Review

I am delighted Anthony Bukoski’s first powerful stories have been reissued in a new, expanded edition. His sometimes fearsome, always eccentric characters are presented by a voice certain of what it has to say. –W.P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe

When these stories appeared in 1986, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Shirley Ann Grau, writing in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, called them intriguing, just a bit off beat. Publishers Weekly found them appealing. Twenty-two years later, Anthony Bukoski revisits the backwaters of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, where those who love deeply end up being hurt. In Two Heart or Superior, Wisconsin, or in Duluth, Minnesota, the lonely find comfort difficult to come by. Having slipped below an emotional freezing point, the heartbroken in these twelve stories do anything for love. Though it might mean taking a water-well driller as a second or third lover or kissing a foul recluse, some lucky hearts find the way to survive in Bukoski’s frozen North.

Anthony Bukoski has published four other story collections, including Time Between Trains (Southern Methodist University Press), a 2003 Booklist Editor’s Choice selection, and North of the Port (Southern Methodist University Press, 2008). National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts program and Wisconsin Public Radio’s Chapter A Day program have both aired readings of Bukoski’s work. A Christopher Isherwood Foundation fellowship winner, the author resides with his wife Elaine in the country outside of Superior, Wisconsin.