Refugees came from everywhere. Around the desolate ancient port gathered first the people from Hydra, Chios, Mani, Crete, then the Thracians, Pontians, islanders, Macedonians, Rumelians, Peloponnesians, Thessalians, and Epirotes, creating a new race, the port dwellers; the people of Piraeus.

Short stories from the lives of the people of Piraeus in the 1950s and '60s. The harsh life of the port, the various characters, life with one foot on land and the other in the sea, the open outlook of the port dwellers, migration, the quirky and marginal types, rebetiko music, gangs and state violence, flow through the pages of the book and are recorded with dark humor.