Bloomington Days

About the Book

Frat boys who think Mario Lanza is an Italian sports car; journalists who consider "Man arrested for blowing mucus from nose at an officer" a news story . . . Welcome to Bloomington: a world of grey cells and limestone, catfish and cheerleaders, binge drinking and bigots, Ockham's razor and buzz cuts. This is the tiny college town where Alfred Kinsey catalogued gall wasps before stinging a nation into belated sexual awareness. If you're gay or Greek, love opera or hoops, Bloomington is heaven on earth; we have as many same-sex couples as sorority sisters, as many divas as athletes. Welcome to my home, a quixotic mix of small-town life and larger than life campus, squirreled away in the flatlands of Middle America, where torpor is sometimes mistaken for nirvanic serenity, irony for insult and "ethnographic dazzle" for deep differences.

About the Author

Blaise Cronin was born and raised in Ireland. Trinity College Dublin and the Queen’s University of Belfast graciously granted him the degrees necessary to avoid working for a living. He came to Middle America via London (England) and Glasgow (Scotland). In one sense, he has never looked back; in another, he has never stopped looking back.