)Baker grew up in Wheaton, Illinois, once a stop on the Underground Railroad, but more recently a bastion of evangelical fundamentalism and political conservativism, resistance to which has been one of the dominant influences on his life and writing.After graduating from New College in Florida, co-owning a leather shop in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and then dropping out of the doctoral program at the UC Irvine, he spent a number of years as a hippy, camping near Tassajarra Zen Center in the Los Padres National Forest and passing much of the rest of his time in various bars.