Filled with desperate runaways, the unhappily married, and the displaced. These characters often long for happiness but struggle to explain—even to themselves—what that would entail. Exploring themes of dislocation and assimilation, love and loneliness, and generational conflict in Polish American communities, Anthony Bukoski admirably paints portraits of people doing their best, despite the odds and their sometimes-thwarted attempts to follow the urgings of their better angels.