Red Baker [Hardcover]

Robert Ward (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Dial; First Edition. states edition (1983)
• ASIN: B001AMEZWG
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly evocative blue collar novel, March 6, 2003

By 

m_noland "m_noland" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Baker (Paperback)

Highly evocative novel set in late 1970s/early 1980s de-industrializing Baltimore as seen through the eyes of permanently laid-off steelworker Red Baker. No prior knowledge of the milieu is required: A friend unfamiliar with the geographic and social specifics that Robert Ward describes attests to the fact that it conveys a feel for Baltimore's industrial decline, and the individual tragedies that accompanied its transition to a post-industrial economy.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great blue-collar drama, January 11, 2007

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Baker (Paperback)

This novel won the PEN West Best Novel of 1985 and is now is new in paperback. Ward, the author of seven novels, and is also a screenwriter who has worked on Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice.

Red Baker is laid off from his 20-year job in the steel mills of Baltimore and loses it big time--drugs, booze and women (Crystal, a dancer at Lily's Bar). He and his friend Dog struggle to survive after the layoffs with horrible jobs and humiliation after humiliation.

Red's wife Wanda and his teenage basketball star son, Ace, stick by him as much as they can, but it is difficult. Despairing, Dog and Red eventually succumb to the lure of crime, and Dog is killed. Now the man they robbed, Vinnie, is after Red. He is beat up and told he has a few weeks to return the money. Red thinks his only way out is to kill Vinnie, and he urges Wanda to take Ace and leave town. Wanda however, has a different idea. Red's family sticks by him, and helps hold him together.

Ward has written a moving and compelling drama of blue-collar suffering and the desperate effort to survive.

Armchair Interviews says: Although dark and heavy, the story has a redeeming end.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast Moving Novel Set In Baltimore, November 10, 2008

By 

Michael L. Slavin "HardBopper" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Red Baker (Paperback)

Red Baker was a skilled steelworker who became jobless when the mill closed because of foreign competition as well as more efficient domestic competition. This book chronicles Red's personal downfall as well as those of several of his former co-workers. I personally don't see Red as quite the sympathetic character the some other reviewers do. Everyone who loses their job doesn't carry on in a out of control fashion as did Red; getting regularly drunk, cheating on his wife, being abusive to his son, engaging in brawls, taking amphetamines, participating in a robbery.
Many other individuals who have lost their jobs have adjusted to the very real hardship and recognized they needed to do something constructive to improve the situation. Not easy. But, possible. Still a quick good read.