Renegades

Renegades: My Wild Journey from Professor to New Journalist with Visits from Clint Eastwood, Reggie Jackson, Lee Marvin and Other Icons

by Robert Ward

Coming: March 2012

 

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Throughout the 70s and 80s, author Robert Ward lived a whirlwind life.

After publishing Shedding Skin in 1972, a novel that won a National Endowment for the Arts Award and that Publishers Weekly called, ““The quintessential hippie ’60s novel,” Robert Ward decided to give journalism a try.

What followed were two decades of assignments for New Times, GQ, SPORT, Rolling Stone, and other publications, covering the biggest stars of the sporting, music, art, and film worlds. This collection includes Ward’s celebrated story on Reggie Jackson that nearly tore the New York Yankees apart (and was later brought to life in an ESPN mini-series “The Bronx is Burning”), a profile of the “outlaw” country music movement of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, and David Allan Coe and an insightful feature on Hustler publisher Larry Flynt as a young pornographer that almost cost Ward his life.

Also included are essays about: The former premier of Vietnam Nguyen Cao Ky trying to adjust to life in California, an aging Lee Marvin dealing with the survivor’s guilt from his time in World War II, an unsigned Bruce Springsteen playing his legendary showcase show, and profiles of Dr. J, LeRoy Nieman, Richard Pryor, Robert Mitchum, Tom Waits, and a variety of fringe characters on the American scene.

In addition to the articles, Ward has written an essay tying these stories and the story of his life together.