What is Robert Ward reading?

Robert Ward's first novel was the critically acclaimed Shedding Skin, which won the National Endowment of the Arts award for first novel of exceptional merit.

He has since written seven more novels, including Red Baker, which won the PEN West prize for Best Novel of 1985.

His latest novel is Four Kinds of Rain, which George Pelecanos called "feverish and funny, an end-of-the-dream novel that could only have come from the very talented, slightly twisted mind of Robert Ward."

Over at "Writers Read," Ward shares his thoughts on quality (and lame) writing, old and new. And he names names.

His bottom line:

When I was coming up literary intellectuals used to like to say that anything that was popular was junk. Maybe there was once some justification for that attitude but there isn't anymore. There are wonderful, entertaining and yet serious crime writers out there. Only a few of them are on the best seller list, but they do have decent sized audiences and they'll get even more readers. Crime fiction is the smartest of the popular arts now. If you haven't gotten hip to it yet, all you have to do is go to your nearest bookstore.

Visit Robert Ward's website and read an excerpt from Four Kinds of Rain.

The Page 69 Test: Four Kinds of Rain.

Writers Read: Robert Ward.

--Marshal Zeringue