Twelve Below Zero

These short stories set in the frozen North and down-home South are bitter, sarcastic and grotesque, so much so that they create a kind of oddball metaphysic. Bukoski, an assistant English professor at Northwestern State University in Louisiana, brings a sophisticated voice to unsophisticated characters. They are farmers, sawyers, truckers and innkeepers, descendants of Swedish and Polish immigrants. They seem to live in an America unacquainted with Freud and computers, and they hold back little of their searing loneliness, jealousy and loathing. Bukoski's voice is strong and sometimes quirky, but these stories are nonetheless appealing. (April)