American Author Explores the Soul of Baltimore
profile of author Rafael Alvarez
by Mike Maggio
Author Rafael Alvarez reads from his new book, Don’t Count Me Out: A Baltimore Dope Fiend’s Miraculous Recovery. Photo credit: Jennifer Bishop.
Born and raised in the Linthicum neighborhood, just south of the home of the storied Baltimore Orioles, Rafael Alvarez has spent most of his life living and working in the heart of Charm City (Alvarez calls it Crabtown USA): roaming its rough-and-tumble streets and witnessing the lives of the down-and-out, all of which would become fodder for his life’s work as a writer.
Alvarez began his writing career at the age of 19, penning articles for Baltimore City Paper, a weekly alternative news source that ran for 40 years, unlike most alternative papers. With bylines to his name, he joined the Baltimore Sun in 1977, working first in the circulation department dispatching trucks. He moved to the sports department in 1978, and to the city desk by 1981, where he worked until 2001, covering cops and crime and later writing profiles on such colorful characters as knife grinders and button collectors. After a short stint as an ordinary seaman, he began writing for television. He freelanced for such television series as HBO’s The Wire and the NBC crime dramas Life and The Black Donnellys, among others.
But Alvarez’s heart always belonged to Baltimore where he eventually returned to care for his aging parents and “to return to [his] muse: the city of Baltimore.” There you will often find him in Greektown, at Karella’s Café, surrounded by local writers and fans as he reads from his own work or helps promote other local authors. As he will quickly tell you, he is a storyteller, though this is only half of what he does, for his interest in helping other writers remains paramount. And in addition to journalism and screenwriting, he is an accomplished fiction writer. His most recent short story collection, Basilio Boullosa Stars in the Fountain of Highlandtown (CityLit Press, 2017) is a coming-of-age exploration set in the 60’s and 70’s in an ethnic Baltimore neighborhood, replete with sex, drugs and rock and roll.
The thread that weaves together all of Alvarez’s writing is the people and culture of the working class. In all of his writing, there is always a glimmer of hope: a dim light that gradually brightens into a ray of redemption. And this is what we witness in his latest endeavor, Don’t Count Me Out: A Baltimore Dope Fiend’s Miraculous Recovery (Cornell University Press, 2022), the true-life story of Bruce White, whose precipitous descent into the world of drugs eventually led to his striking recovery.
I asked Rafael Alvarez to tell us a little about his life experiences and how he came to write Don’t Count me Out.
Tell us about your background and how you came to write Don’t Count Me Out. How did you come to know Bruce White?
I have been an established writer in Baltimore for more than 40 years now, going back to bylines as a teenager in the original Baltimore City Paper. By the time Bruce contacted me in 2012, I had also been writing for cable (HBO’s The Wire) and network TV for several years. Bruce was friends with one of the actors on The Wire, Michael Salconi, who I knew from Little Italy. Bruce told Salconi that he’d been trying for years to have a book written about his life and his improbable survival. He’d worked with someone years earlier who quit after a few months. In the ways of the old neighborhood, when Bruce dropped Salconi’s name, he had my attention. It was as simple as that. I was in LA chasing screenwriting work (that didn’t pan out) when Bruce called. If [I’d been able to make the screenwriting work out], this book would not have been written.
Don’t Count Me Out presents the reader with a raw look at the drug epidemic in Baltimore and, by extension, in the United States. It’s a close-up view, one that most Americans don’t wish to acknowledge. What drew you to this topic?
I was not on a crusade of any kind and had no wish to reach any particular audience except people who can read English. I quickly realized that in terms of bad actors and bizarre stories, this was the best one that had come my way in decades of street reporting. On the most basic level, I needed work and this landed in my lap out of the blue. Then it became a passion. Then it became drudgery (it took ten years 2012 to 2022 from initial phone call to published book) and then it became a polished piece of work. Bruce most definitely wants to reach the still suffering addict and chose the dedication for the book. I would be thrilled if someone or many people became clean and sober and productive because of this book. But at ground zero, I’m a storyteller and this is a good one.
As you make clear, drug addiction, no matter how it manifests, is a disease rather than a choice. This is a paradigm shift with real implications for the way we approach treatment. How do we foster a change in the approach we take to help these individuals?
I am not a policy maker or a wonk. Addiction touches every family in the country whether those families choose to acknowledge it or not. Change begins with love, sometimes very tough love. Change in thinking can rarely be predicted. In 2000, if George Bush or Al Gore had come out in favor of same sex marriage, it would have torpedoed their campaigns. Today (for the most part) campaigns are sunk if the candidate doesn’t support same sex marriage. One day the Berlin Wall falls. No one knows the day.
You are primarily a journalist, though you have written fiction and worked in film. How have these different styles of expression informed you as a writer?
I taught myself to do all of those genres in order to remain solvent over a long career. Each has informed the other in many ways. From film, I learned to “paint scenes” in my fiction and tie together plot like Lego blocks. Journalism was a huge help in writing dialogue for television and film. You take notes on people talking for 40 years and develop an ear for the music of everyday language. Journalism pays the bills. Fiction is the writing I do that most reveals who I am and what I care about.
What is your next project? Where can we expect you to take us next?
I have just signed a contract to write a book about my 30-year experience with the Rosary, my preferred tool for prayer and meditation. It’s a journey that began in Lourdes, France in 1990 when I took my then nine-year-old daughter to France and Spain. I am also on the third draft of a novel set in Baltimore during the Depression and have a serialized novel that I add to each month called Nieves and the Golden Earrings. It is available via Patreon.
Mike Maggio has published fiction, poetry, reviews, and Arabic translations in journals and anthologies in the United States and abroad. He serves on the board of the Poetry Society of Virginia and as an associate editor of Potomac Review. He is the author of several books of poetry and fiction, most recently a story collection, Letters from Inside. Find him online at www.MikeMaggio.net.