Brigid Does Bleak

About the Book

It's a tough time for Brigid Fritz, a thirty-something sophisticate leaving Chicago. She's lost her job there, and her mother in Wisconsin is seriously ill. Back home in Bleak, Wisconsin, she also knows, she'll encounter Jeremy, a high school classmate, whom many townsfolk think she was always destined to marry.

Will Brigid be able to heal her mom and return to the big city? Will she succumb to Jeremy and have to settle in the backwater burg (1500 residents) where she grew up?

Jeremy is part of the Prohaska family, the town's ruling dynasty full of weird people: Elmer, whose life mission is catching a catfish named Log; Muriel, postmistress, who is either psychic or an Alzheimer's case; E.H.R./P.W., former high school principal, who spends his days watching paint dry on walls; and Dim, a man of almost no words.

For Brigid, choosing what to do should be easy. But maybe Bleak will grow on her in unexpected ways. Maybe Jeremy isn't typical of his family.

See what happens in this affectionate send-up of small town life and a chic woman who lands there. Find out what happens when Brigid Does Bleak.

About the Author

Blithely unfocused in retirement, former community college teacher Richard Swanson regularly leaves Madison to explore small, rural towns in Wisconsin. There he thinks he?ll find local character types he can feel smugly superior to. Alas, those he encounters bear an uncanny resemblance to himself.