This Boy's Life - Softcover

Tobias Wolff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747546010 ISBN 13: 9780747546016

Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 1999

Synopsis

The author of "The Barracks Thief" and "Hunters in the Snow" recreates his boyhood experiences, relating how he and his mother travelled throughout the United States, and tracing his experiences and changes from young boy to manhood against the background of a violent and wildly optimistic America.

About this title

Review:

Fiction writer Tobias Wolff electrified critics with his scarifying 1989 memoir, which many deemed as notable for its artful structure and finely wrought prose as for the events it describes. The story is pretty grim: Teenaged Wolff moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington State to escape her violent boyfriend. When she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be more evenly matched than might have been supposed. Deception, disguise, and illusion are the weapons the young man learns to employ as he grows up--not bad training for a writer-to-be. Somber though this tale of family strife is, it is also darkly funny and so artistically satisfying that most readers come away exhilarated rather than depressed.

About the Author:

The author of three collections of stories, Tobias Wolff lives with his family near Stanford University, where he is the director of the creative writing program.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0747546010
• ISBN 13: 9780747546016
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256