Corktown is set in a predominantly Irish section of Detroit in the 1930s. It evokes a time and place while recounting the adventures and misadventures of Fara Belarde and his friends. Plunged by a family breakup into a new environment that he finds both threatening and exciting, Fara is bombarded with experiences and challenges as he becomes part of a group of boys that includes Irish, Mexican, Greek, and Maltese. Humor and imagination play a large part in the novel, as does nostalgia for a past that Fara remembers brilliantly, if not always perfectly.