A Village Looks Ahead: Reviving a Town, Rekindling a Spirit

When a flood uncovers a 1940 bank bag in the library basement, Link Lake must decide what--and who--it’s willing to save.

In A Village Looks Ahead, a small Wisconsin town wrestles with change as two efforts collide: a library writing class unearths the community’s buried past while the mayor’s Planning Commission pushes boldly toward self-reliance--food, power, and a future by design.

Old mysteries resurface (including that long-whispered 1940 robbery), and new pressures mount: WLLK--＂The Voice of Reason＂--fans debate on the airwaves, a recall election splits neighbors, and a tornado drives families into the library’s storm shelter.

Through it all, librarian Jackie Jo Jensen and Mayor Jon Jessup ask a defining question: can a place honor what it was while becoming what it needs to be? As one townsman says, ＂When we forget our histories, we forget who we are.＂

A warm, timely novel of memory, grit, and the everyday heroism of a community choosing its next chapter.

Jerry Apps was born and raised on a farm in central Wisconsin. Upon graduation from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and spending time in the U.S. Army, Apps worked as a county extension agent in Green Lake and Brown County Wisconsin. He then worked as a staff development specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Extension. He is Professor Emeritus of the University Wisconsin-Madison and the author of several fiction and non-fiction books about agriculture and rural life in the Upper Midwest.