Robert Riche

Brock Downsized Robert Riche

Publisher Marketing: "Brock Downsized" - the story When the prostheses and condom manufacturing factory where Bill Brock has been Communications Manager goes belly-up Brock finds himself out on the street. In this comic but ultimately serious novel, Brock is obliged to take up the somewhat undignified role of wedding videogra-pher. At the same time he is suddenly faced with a series of mid-life setbacks. His prostate goes floppy down, and the jolly, high-spirited doctors pre-scribe every type of wrong medication, while at the same time the nutty sexy wife of his nutty psychiatrist tries to seduce him, his aged father is dying in a nursing home, his nextdoor neigh-bor draws him unwittingly into a kiddyporn ring, and his artist son is implicated as a terrorist storing fertilizer and metal bomb parts in the family's backyard, while his daughter's infatuation with a married man is about to drive him crazy. After all this, and quite a bit more, Brock finds himself, one could say, a bit discomfitted. Brock's spirit is indomitable, however, as he flounders about attempting to gain control over his life. The humor is laugh-out-loud comical, and yet the book has moments that are often deeply moving, while eschewing false sentimentality. Review Citations: BlueInk Review 10/20/2012 (EAN 9781477275672, Paperback) Foreword 01/03/2013 (EAN 9781477275672, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Riche, Robert Robert Riche has been a newspaper reporter, a United Press Staff Correspondent in New York, a free-lance correspondent out of Paris. He has been a union organizer. As a free-lance writer he has written travel and food feature articles for many magazines and newspapers. He is the author of ten previous novels, several books of poetry and numerous plays. His plays have been produced in many areas of the United States and at the Bristol Old Vic, England. He is a recipient of a NEA grant, Connecticut Foundation for the Arts grant, Advanced Drama Research grant, winner of the Stanley Drama Award. He is a Norman Mailer Writers Colony scholar, Breadloaf Writers Conference scholar. Mr. Riche is married to the painter and photographer Fran Riche. He and his wife live in Connecticut, and spend part of each summer in Provincetown, Mass.