The Reader‘s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds.
Nardi spent a lot of time with Baltzley. Their interviews went deep into some very dark places, almost like therapy sessions. Over a long night in Pittsburgh, over many shots of bourbon, he tells her about his hard-luck Florida childhood and about his struggles with addiction. “Two hours from now,” Nardi wrote, “Baltzley will leave me sitting alone at a bar and return to tell me that he’s been doing coke and playing with guns. An hour after that, he’ll cry in a hotel room while we talk about his dad. Two hours from now, he’ll give me what I think he is—an hour after that, he’ll show me the truth.”
