Renegades

February 15, 2012

Novelist Ward (Shedding Skin) presents a collection of previously published pieces from his freelance days in the 1960s-70s writing for New Times magazine, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and more. Ward frames these 17 articles with more recent writing, providing a deeper look into the (often dangerous) situations in which his interviews took place. His opening line as he primes his tape recorder and starts his interviews has always been "I'm here to set the record straight." Ward tackles each interview with a keen sense of passion for his subjects. Highlights include a conversation with former prime minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Cao Ky, the twisted tale of "The Mount Kisco Sting," and the infamous interview with Reggie Jackson that nearly tore the New York Yankees apart. VERDICT Ward's articles are interesting, but his often lengthy and meandering commentaries that precede and follow them are poorly labeled, making it difficult to tell when an article or interview begins and ends. Still, this is essential reading for those interested in new journalism.--Allegra Young, Canadian Music Ctr., Toronto

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2012
After he published his comic novel Shedding Skin in 1972, Ward, feeling pressure from some of his New Left friends, undertook a Serious Noveland wound up abandoning it due to a total lack of commitment to the material. But his affection for the new, personal style of reportage, the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, turned him in a new direction: writing magazine profiles. This collection of essays is sure to appeal to fans of those writers. Ward tells fascinating stories about fascinating people, but unlike traditional journalism, the author is a key element in his stories. His profile of Larry Flynt, at the time a newcomer to the world of pornography, is as much about the author's reaction to Flynt as it is about the man himself; his piece about Clint Eastwood, written when Eastwood was making the transition from maligned actor to respected filmmaker, explores the author's own shifting feelings about his subject. For fans of first-person journalism, this makes great reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)