Robert Ward is a Baltimore native who went to Towson University before earning an MFA at the University of Arkansas. After teaching for a time, he decided on a writing career. His first novel, “Shedding Skin,” won an NEA award for first novel of exceptional merit. He has since written several other novels, including “Red Baker,” which won the PEN West prize for best novel of 1985, and which is now available again from St. Martin?s Minotaur. His new novel, “Four Kinds of Rain,” is also published by St. Martin?s. Ward co-wrote the screenplay for his own novel, “Cattle Annie and Little Britches,” and has written for and produced several television series, among them “Hill Street Blues” and “Miami Vice.” He lives with his wife and son in Los Angeles, but visits Baltimore often.
A few pages into “Red Baker” I wanted to know why I had never known about this book. What happened to it when it came out in 1985?
It got a lot of attention from the critics and writers know about it. The public was in love with yuppies back then. Nobody cared about the working class. A well-known publisher told me he wept when he read it, but he couldn?t publish it. He said, “It?s about working class people and Red cheats on his wife and that wouldn?t look good. We expect working class heroes to be more pure than that.”
Is there any significance to the similarity of your name to that of the protagonist of “Four Kinds of Rain,” Bob Wells?
I get pretty angry at my generation for selling out so easily and so smoothly without ever talking about it. One minute we were the Woodstock generation trying to save the world, the next minute everybody got jobs in corporate law firms. The radical shrinks went on to become corporate shrinks and nobody even blinked about it.
I used a name similar to mine because I was so depressed and bummed out and I thought if I used a similar name I could tap into my own anger.
Do you think you have a Baltimore voice?
The great thing about growing up in Baltimore was the camaraderie among my friends. We were wise guys and shared an over-the-top sense of humor and an attitude. My grandfather once asked me why I was going to Washington. He said, “People [there] don?t even live where they grew up.”
Did a lot of people feel left out and left behind by the Baltimore renaissance?
I know they did. I spent a year and a half hanging around bars and talking with them. They really felt pushed around, and they were. People called after “Red Baker” came out and said I really struck a nerve. It?s something that?s still going on and needs to be addressed. … Writers need to address it, but they?re not very interested.
Both “Red Baker” and “Four Kinds of Rain” suggest that you see women as being tougher ? in the sense that they can make the hard decisions ? than the men.
It?s been my experience that women are tougher, that men are the romantics. My grandmother [the subject of “Grace”] was an unbelievably strong woman. My grandfather was a ship?s captain; she was the one who kept the family together.
You?re about to play yourself in an ESPN miniseries.
Jonathan Mahler incorporated a 1977 interview I did during spring training for an article about Reggie Jackson joining the Yankees in his book “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning.” ESPN is making the book into a miniseries. They decided to include my interview in the script and asked me if I would like to read for the part of me. I got the role.
