Twelve Below Zero

By Anthony Bukoski

"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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977945871
• ISBN13: 9780977945870
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Holy Cow Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Very memorable

The previous reviewer has given a fine review of Bukoski's book. I will not try to repeat what he has already said so well. I am simply concurring that these are great stories that are refreshing, poignant, finely crafted and memorable.

A book that will remain in your memory for a long time

Every now and then you find a book, you read it, and it truly changes you. Such a book is Anthony Bukoski's collection of stories, Twelve Below Zero. The strange characters living in its pages touch the reader and stick in the memory: Augie Benner, who smelled so bad the local townspeople made him wear a bell so they knew he was coming; Luanna, receiving the last sacraments and lament- ing her sins; Syl Magda lying in her bed in the cold, dying. The settings of the stories also remain in your mind long afterward: the spit and herring scales on the floor of the End-of-the-Line Cafe; Harry's pulley and basket mail delivery in- vention at the Armitage Hotel; the incredible cold outside the House of the Blue Rondo near Lake Superior. Bukoski has an amazing gift for storytelling and his stories move, delight and disturb the reader. Some, such as "Great Sea Battles" and "The Kissing Booth," are howlingly humorous, whereas others, "Ice Days" and Twelve BElow Zero" come to mind, carry with them a sense of local, yet universal tragedy. Many of the stories are set among the cold lonliness of northern Wisconsin's winter; Bukoski was born and raised and now teaches and writes there. If you want an unusual treat, something which will remain with you long after you put the book down, something refreshing and unique and mysteriously wonderful, find a copy of Anthony Bukoski's Twelve Below Zero.