BROCK DOWNSIZED

About the Book

"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.

About the Author

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 an organizer for the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers Union. As a free-lance writer he has written travel and food feature articles for the N.Y. Times, Washington Post, Town & Country, Forbes FYI, Robb Report, Italian Food & Wine. He is the author of three novels, many plays, and several books of poetry. He is a recipient of a NEA grant, Connecticut Foundation for the Arts grant, Advanced Drama Research grant, winner of the Stanley Drama Award. His plays have been produced in many areas of the United States and at the Bristol Old Vic, England. He is a Norman Mailer Writers Colony scholar, Breadloaf Writers Conference scholar. Mr. Riche has been married to the painter Fran Riche for 49 years. His son is a sculptor working out of San Francisco. His daughter is a painter and illustrator whose work appears on the covers of this book. Mr. Riche holds to the view that all children are created equal, and should be given equal opportunities in life. He lives in Connecticut, and spends part of each summer in Provincetown, Mass.