This Boy's Life; a Memoir - Hardcover

Tobias Wolff Signed By Author 1st Print

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871132486 ISBN 13: 9780871132482

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989

Synopsis

The winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction writes a memoir that brings to life the stuff of boyhood--from paper routes to whiskey, fistfights to friendship and betrayal--and captures as well America in the fifties.

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: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0871132486
• ISBN 13: 9780871132482
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288
• Illustrator: Julie Duquet, Book Comes With Movie Leonardo DiCaprio's 1st Film With Robert DeNiro