This Boy's Life

This is a classy, beautifully composed autobiography by one of today's best/mostserious US authors. I recommend it to anyone, but it could be especially enjoyed by older/literate adolescent boys who were raised by a single mother in difficult circumstances; it will speak to many.

This book is very teachable and interesting to read. I was able to use this as a fulcrum text for our coming off age unit for sophomores in high schoolvery successfully. It was an easy read and very engaging.

Scavenging for nits on someone's scalp. That's what I see from this man Dwight as he points out and makes up faults of this young Toby (Jack). Dwight wants to marry Toby's mother. In the meantime, she has him living with Dwight while she makes up her mind as to whether she wants to marry him. Toby, for some reason, lies to her when she asks how it's going (with Dwight). He's treated as a house slave. Nothing more, nothing less.

We are a community college reading class and we’ve just finished reading This Boy’s Life. Here are our thoughts:

Things we liked:
• Interesting story that moved at the right pace – didn’t drag
• Engaging and relatable; Eye opening
• Descriptive writing – realistic with lots of imagery
• Fairly easy to read in terms of vocabulary and writing style

Things we didn’t like:
• No “Wow” factor – flat mood throughout; not dynamic so some of us lost interest in the end
• Abrupt ending
• Strongly disliked nearly all of the men

Very engaging memoir from the first page onwards. Mr. Wolff has a natural ability to write engagingly in a relaxed way. His book spans about the first 17 years of his life prior to his joining the U.S. Army and heading to Vietnam (see In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War)

It's hard not to come to like Mr. Wolff and his mom as you read. Always on the move, he and his mom finally settle in a small town called Concrete, Montana. Mom has moved in with Dwight who, for no apparent reason, despises Mr. Wolff. Dwight sets out to make Wolff's life hell and, for the most part succeeds.

Wolff's writing has a kind of relaxed feel to it as he relays events. He relays his memories to us in such a way that it's all believable. I never found myself thinking anything was overblown. A lot of what was written related to me personally. The single mother, over bearing, unrelated father figure and the alcohol. I found myself nodding at some of the antics of those involved.

Based on this writing, I'll pursue more of Mr. Wolff's work as I feel he has a natural ability to engage me. In summary, "This boy's life" is a fascinating look at a young man coming of age in the 50's. It's well written and moves along at, for me, a perfect pace. Well worth my time.

Wolff, Tobias. This Boy's Life.

After watching a truck plunge over a cliff, Tobias Wolff begins the story of his boyhood: `It was 1955 and we were driving from Florida to Utah, to get away from a man my mother was afraid of and to get rich on uranium.' The memoir is replete with such unfulfilled promises of happiness and riches, for this boy's life is far from happy and successful. In fact, although `people in Utah were getting up poor in the morning and going to bed rich at night,' sleeping rough, going to poor schools, and suffering a thousand humiliations is to be the lot of Toby, self-christened Jack, after Jack London.

Jack's major problem, however, is being terrorised by the psychopath Dwight, the `man my mother was afraid of.' Already a scoundrel, given to theft, window-breaking and taking pot-shots at people in the street, Jack is obviously in need of paternal discipline. This is provided - and how! - by his mother's latest suitor, Dwight, a divorcee with three children. Dwight emerges as a humourless control freak.

Living with Dwight and family in Chinook, a town without a school is `A Whole New Deal.' The first instalment of this is Dwight's confiscation of Jack's Winchester rifle; the next is finding him a paper round, and the most arduous having him shuck horse chestnuts every night, the promised remuneration from papers and nuts ending up in his guardian's pocket. The Winchester too now, in effect, belongs to Dwight, a boaster who can't shoot for toffee.

Eventually, by fair means and foul, Jack manages to escape from the dreary school at Concrete by winning a scholarship to Hill, a private school, into which he is initiated by being measured for a wardrobe of uniforms. It begins to look like an upbeat ending for the scapegrace hero, but being Jack it isn't to be. Conformity and a settled life are not for him.

What I liked about Jack's story is the calm unemotional tone maintained as he and his mother constantly move from one disaster to another, from Florida to Utah to Seattle, ending up in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. My only cavil is with the ending, in my opinion just a couple of pages too long. I'd have preferred it to end with the reunion of mother and son in Washington DC, when she takes him `to a piano bar full of men in Nehru jackets where she let me drink myself under the table. She wanted me to know that I'd lasted longer than she ever thought I would.' All Jack needs in life is his mother's approval. As for her, `she was in a mood to celebrate, having just landed a good job in a church across the street from the White House. "I've got a better view than Kennedy," she told me.'

Leaving Sarasota, Florida, in a run-down Nash Rambler in 1955, Toby Wolff, then ten, and his mother are looking forward to a new life in Utah. Not long after arriving, however, the two make a sudden, night-time departure for newer pastures in Seattle--the mother's abusive relationship in Utah having become intolerable. Later Toby and his mother gravitate to Chinook, a remote village in the Cascades. His mother marries a tough man who cruelly punishes Toby (who has changed his name to Jack in honor of Jack London) for infractions, sells some of Toby's treasured belongings, and tries to impose military discipline on him.

Wolff's story of his grim life from age ten through high school is a breath-taking recreation, filled with the sorts of longings that motivate sensitive young boys everywhere, but also filled with an a self-awareness that is rare in such autobiographies. Jack (Toby) is a rebel--a sometime kleptomaniac, thief, cheater, liar, and schoolboy miscreant who loves his mother, hates his stepfather (and generally tries to avoid him), and hangs out with similarly alienated, hell-raising schoolmates, who often "escape" through alcohol.

When his brother (who remained with his father), encourages Jack to apply as a scholarship student to an eastern boarding school, thereby escaping his stepfather, he is intrigued with the idea, though he has had few academic interests until then. The story of how Wolff manages to attend a prep school is a classic. (The fictionalized story of his boarding school life appears in his recent novel, Old School.)

Throughout this self-examination, hilariously funny in many places and remarkably astute, Jack sees himself as the "Jack" he invents to suit circumstances, while simultaneously revealing himself as he really is, the hidden "Jack." Like many his age, he often takes the easy way out, and he recognizes this, too. As he grapples with perennial issues of growing up, needing to be accepted, learning what is "right," and changing his behavior to meet the differing expectations of peers and family, he comes to new understandings about himself and his place in the world. One of the best and most honest coming-of-age stories ever written, This Boy's Life is a modern classic. Mary Whipple

This is a beautiful cinematic memoir of a young boy's struggle to get out into the world in one piece.
Sound familiar? Yes, this book will speak to you. I imagine it will speak to anyone who's felt out of place,
alone, like his mother was acting crazy or erratic, and never vigilant enough, and her new date is a cause for your suffering and abuse, and the distant father is glorified in the imagination. I certainly related.

A classic.

forever,
Annie

Annie Lanzillotto
author of "L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir" SUNY Press
and "Schistsong" BORDIGHERA Press

www.annielanzillotto.com

L Is for Lion: An Italian Bronx Butch Freedom Memoir (SUNY series in Italian/American Culture)
Schistsong (Via Folios)
Blue Pill
Carry My Coffee (Live)
Eleven Recitations

asserts Tobias "Toby" Wolff in this "memoir of boyhood." His claim applies in so many ways to the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of his abusive, controlling stepfather. Wolff's story begins in 1955 with the ten-year-old traveling westbound on a cross country trip with his mother "from Florida to Utah to get away from a man my mother was afraid of and to get rich on uranium." While his older brother Geoffrey (who also wrote a memoir about his childhood) remained in the custody of his wealthy dad, of whom he writes (p 122), "As a boy, I found no fault with my father...," Toby lived with his mother, who made a habit of choosing the wrong kind of men with which to engage in relationships. After leaving California, mother and son lived for a time in Concrete, Washington. They then moved ever further out in the boondocks to live with his stepfather, Dwight, the bane of Toby's existence. The man's bad behavior, especially towards the boy but also his mother, make up a decent part of the memoir.

The author admits he wasn't the best behaved kid, (p 133), "I was a liar...I was also a thief," and had some pretty serious worries, (p 11), "I was subject to fits of feeling myself unworthy, somehow deeply at fault." All grown up, he provides excellent insight into his former life, (p 286) "When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever." Somehow, he survives. His story ends with him heading off to a college he seems less than qualified to attend. Fortunately for readers, in This Boy's Life, he provides a brutally honest account of his upbringing. Also good: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Even Silence Has an End by Ingrid Betancourt and Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

"This Boy's Life" is a fairly nondescript memior. Tobias Wolff was neither a child of privilege, nor a coming of story that follows a rocket to fame. Describing the book this way is not to suggest that it is not a good read. One may launch criticisms against the character, but it is difficult to do so against the story itself.

Tobias (Jack) seem to spend much of the book on the move. Though the his mother's beau Dwight is the next most stable character, he also becomes a source of much of the conflict. Readers will often find themselves wishing Tobias would be more assertive and stand up for himself. Whether its is the quarrels with his step-father Dwight or the "sissy" Arthur, the lack of self-assertiveness can be maddening. Much of Tobias's conflict stems from his mother's instability. After divorcing his father, Tobias's mother drifts from locations and relationships. In itself, this unhealthy lifestyle is a source of Tobias's conflicts.

The chronology of the book begins at middle school age and continues to an undetermined time in high school. Tobias does find his share of adolescent mischief throughout the book. Among the incidents, nothing really goes over the top.

"This Boy's Life" is not a profound read, but it is an entertaining slice of adolescence. A lot of what is included is what boys still experience at that age. The fast paced nature lends itself to being able to read the book in only a few sittings.

This is a very serious and entertaining autobiographical account of Tobias Wolff's early years.
He was greatly attached to his mother and managed to survive (with zest and resilience!!)
despite a cruel stepfather and some bizarre experiences. He appears to have had a strange
and determined tenacity of vision and an ability to mold fantasy into reality. The only reality
he was powerless to mold was an absent father and frequent uprootings.

"I imagined being adopted by different people I saw on the street. Sometimes, seeing a man
in a suit come towards me from a distance that blurred his features, I would prepare myself
to recognize my father and to be recognized by him. Then we would pass each other and a
few minutes later I would pick someone else. I talked to anyone who would talk back. When
the need came upon me, I knocked on the door of the nearest house and asked to use the
bathroom. No one ever refused. I sat in other people's yards and played with their dogs.
The dogs got to know me - - by the end of the year they'd be waiting for me." (P. 12-13)

Due to his intelligence, Mr. Wolff gets admitted into a prep school where he feels like a
failure. "I did not do well at Hill. How could I? I knew nothing. My ignorance was so pro-
found that entire class periods would pass without my understanding anything that was
said." (P 285). Mr. Wolff starts acting out oppositionally, preparing to become a juvenile
delinquent. He is well on that road when the book ends. The book leads the reader to
speculate how the mature Tobias Wolff emerged from this punk/hoodlum. Where did the
transition come into play? Perhaps this information is provided in the sequel which I
look forward to reading.

Leaving Sarasota, Florida, in a run-down Nash Rambler in 1955, Toby Wolff, then ten, and his mother are looking forward to a new life in Utah. Not long after arriving, however, the two make a sudden, night-time departure for newer pastures in Seattle--the mother's abusive relationship in Utah having become intolerable. Later Toby and his mother gravitate to Chinook, a remote village in the Cascades. His mother marries a tough man who cruelly punishes Toby (who has changed his name to Jack in honor of Jack London) for infractions, sells some of Toby's treasured belongings, and tries to impose military discipline on him.

Wolff's story of his grim life from age ten through high school is a breath-taking recreation, filled with the sorts of longings that motivate sensitive young boys everywhere, but also filled with an a self-awareness that is rare in such autobiographies. Jack (Toby) is a rebel--a sometime kleptomaniac, thief, cheater, liar, and schoolboy miscreant who loves his mother, hates his stepfather (and generally tries to avoid him), and hangs out with similarly alienated, hell-raising schoolmates, who often "escape" through alcohol.

When his brother (who remained with his father), encourages Jack to apply as a scholarship student to an eastern boarding school, thereby escaping his stepfather, he is intrigued with the idea, though he has had few academic interests until then. The story of how Wolff manages to attend a prep school is a classic. (The fictionalized story of his boarding school life appears in his recent novel, Old School.)

Throughout this self-examination, hilariously funny in many places and remarkably astute, Jack sees himself as the "Jack" he invents to suit circumstances, while simultaneously revealing himself as he really is, the hidden "Jack." Like many his age, he often takes the easy way out, and he recognizes this, too. As he grapples with perennial issues of growing up, needing to be accepted, learning what is "right," and changing his behavior to meet the differing expectations of peers and family, he comes to new understandings about himself and his place in the world. One of the best and most honest coming-of-age stories ever written, This Boy's Life is a modern classic. Mary Whipple

Leaving Sarasota, Florida, in a run-down Nash Rambler in 1955, Toby Wolff, then ten, and his mother are looking forward to a new life in Utah. Not long after arriving, however, the two make a sudden, night-time departure for newer pastures in Seattle--the mother's abusive relationship in Utah having become intolerable. Later Toby and his mother gravitate to Chinook, a remote village in the Cascades. His mother marries a tough man who cruelly punishes Toby (who has changed his name to Jack in honor of Jack London) for infractions, sells some of Toby's treasured belongings, and tries to impose military discipline on him.

Wolff's story of his grim life from age ten through high school is a breath-taking recreation, filled with the sorts of longings that motivate sensitive young boys everywhere, but also filled with an a self-awareness that is rare in such autobiographies. Jack (Toby) is a rebel--a sometime kleptomaniac, thief, cheater, liar, and schoolboy miscreant who loves his mother, hates his stepfather (and generally tries to avoid him), and hangs out with similarly alienated, hell-raising schoolmates, who often "escape" through alcohol.

When his brother (who remained with his father), encourages Jack to apply as a scholarship student to an eastern boarding school, thereby escaping his stepfather, he is intrigued with the idea, though he has had few academic interests until then. The story of how Wolff manages to attend a prep school is a classic. (The fictionalized story of his boarding school life appears in his recent novel, Old School.)

Throughout this self-examination, hilariously funny in many places and remarkably astute, Jack sees himself as the "Jack" he invents to suit circumstances, while simultaneously revealing himself as he really is, the hidden "Jack." Like many his age, he often takes the easy way out, and he recognizes this, too. As he grapples with perennial issues of growing up, needing to be accepted, learning what is "right," and changing his behavior to meet the differing expectations of peers and family, he comes to new understandings about himself and his place in the world. One of the best and most honest coming-of-age stories ever written, This Boy's Life is a modern classic. Mary Whipple

The story is about Wolff's childhood. His mother nurtures him as best she can in between disenchantment with male suitors, employers and various geographies. As the good-hearted mom she gives Toby a pretty long leash to act out his child fantasies - at least the ones she could afford. Then she marries Dwight. And at this point in the story the main conflict begins as Tobias faces-off with his insecure, alcoholic step-father.

I read this book thinking: "My god, this Wolff kid is smart, funny, extremely crafty and got a wee bit of the devil in him." But than it's easy to forget you're reading a memoir written by an award-winning writer such as Wolff. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the adventures of Wolff as a teenager - always wondering how he would lie, cheat, steal his way out of his next jam. His innocence melted away with every turn of the page. But the innocence portrayed by Wolff lacked the quality of real naiveté to me. Overtime it felt more like a precursor, a set-up, for the devilish Wolff to emerge from. Or maybe Wolff just grew-up too fast in those 288 pages for my liking.

What can a person say about Tobias Wolff's writing? Lean? Clean? Outstanding? I venture to say that it's already been called out in one of the hundred reviews listed here. In all, a memoir delivered with a brilliant sense of place, time, and most of all the character of a young man finding his way.

TOBIAS WOLFF--6/19/1945--teacher/author.

This is a great story about a young boys
coming of age....1989.

POIGNANT---a UN CERTAIN LIFE.
PERSONAL DISOLUTION!

He lives with his nomadic mother after his dad
and his brother have moved on after divorce.
They travel all over WASH/FLA/UTAH. His MOM
will re marry a man who abuses TOBY.

TOBY will eventually go to school/play sports/
run off to Alaska--forge checks-steal cars-be
locked up--Then -- VIET NAM.

This is the AUTHORs STORY.In spite of it all--
he became an EXCEPTIONAL man.

His brother GEOFFRY has written a book about
their dad--called THE DUKE OF DECEPTION.

a Wonderful READ!

bp 64 okc

Writer Tobias Wolff does a superb job of recreating his dysfunctional childhood in his memoir _This Boy's Life_. The journey he and his mother take across the country to get away from an abusive relationship lands them in places where they have nothing and know no one. Through it all Toby Wolff and his single mother make the best of what they have and constantly strive for bigger and better things. The struggle of this small family is easily relatable to many readers across the country who have dealt with and are dealing with similar problems. That's why when the reader is finished reading this book they feel a sort of connection or peace rather than a deep emotional pain because they know that similar things go on and they aren't as "different" as they think. The fact that this book is a real life drama appeals to many people and makes the book more fascinating. Wolff does a wonderful job of making this book flow and connect. His down to earth writing style and structured plot bring the book together and leaves the reader with a contentment that most books about family issues don't.

I am a junior in high school and I read this book for my Advanced Contemporary Lit Class. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read a book that was not written for entertaining but for the value it personally brings to the author and to the reader.

Tobias Wolff is one of my favorite fiction writers, and here he presents the first part of his memoirs and proves adept at this genre, also. The story of his mom's life, it seems, is to get seriously involved with abusive, possessive and controlling men, who foist their ugliness on young Toby. Toby's mother is not a weak pathetic person, but is actually a vibrant, warm soul who is a poor judge of character. Toby's filial loyalty and genuine concern for his mom make him a sort of enabler, as he tries to be a sport and go along with each subsequent relationship.
All the characters in the book are compelling, from Toby's absentee dad to his self-absorbed, immature, poor-sport stepfather, Dwight, to the friends he makes. Toby is a typical adolescent--he's good-hearted, but can be very bad; he's smart, but can do stupid things, he's compassionate, but capable of cruelty.
Wolff's writing will break your heart and then make you laugh out loud. (His description of the Lawrence Welk show was more vivid than a TV re-run could be.) You know that Toby and his mom will not only survive their horrible domestic situation, but will eventually prevail.
The movie, which features L. DiCaprio as Toby and R. DeNiro as Dwight, is a pretty good rendition of the book. But read the book first. There are few memoirs in its class.

The story is about Wolff's childhood. His mother nurtures him as best she can in between disenchantment with male suitors, employers and various geographies. As the good-hearted mom she gives Toby a pretty long leash to act out his child fantasies - at least the ones she could afford. Then she marries Dwight. And at this point in the story the main conflict begins as Tobias faces-off with his insecure, alcoholic step-father.

I read this book thinking: "My god, this Wolff kid is smart, funny, extremely crafty and got a wee bit of the devil in him." But than it's easy to forget you're reading a memoir written by an award-winning writer such as Wolff. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the adventures of Wolff as a teenager - always wondering how he would lie, cheat, steal his way out of his next jam. His innocence melted away with every turn of the page. But the innocence portrayed by Wolff lacked the quality of real naiveté to me. Overtime it felt more like a precursor, a set-up, for the devilish Wolff to emerge from. Or maybe Wolff just grew-up too fast in those 288 pages for my liking.

What can a person say about Tobias Wolff's writing? Lean? Clean? Outstanding? I venture to say that it's already been called out in one of the hundred reviews listed here. In all, a memoir delivered with a brilliant sense of place, time, and most of all the character of a young man finding his way.

TOBIAS WOLFF--6/19/1945--teacher/author.

This is a great story about a young boys
coming of age....1989.

POIGNANT---a UN CERTAIN LIFE.
PERSONAL DISOLUTION!

He lives with his nomadic mother after his dad
and his brother have moved on after divorce.
They travel all over WASH/FLA/UTAH. His MOM
will re marry a man who abuses TOBY.

TOBY will eventually go to school/play sports/
run off to Alaska--forge checks-steal cars-be
locked up--Then -- VIET NAM.

This is the AUTHORs STORY.In spite of it all--
he became an EXCEPTIONAL man.

His brother GEOFFRY has written a book about
their dad--called THE DUKE OF DECEPTION.

a Wonderful READ!

bp 64 okc

Writer Tobias Wolff does a superb job of recreating his dysfunctional childhood in his memoir _This Boy's Life_. The journey he and his mother take across the country to get away from an abusive relationship lands them in places where they have nothing and know no one. Through it all Toby Wolff and his single mother make the best of what they have and constantly strive for bigger and better things. The struggle of this small family is easily relatable to many readers across the country who have dealt with and are dealing with similar problems. That's why when the reader is finished reading this book they feel a sort of connection or peace rather than a deep emotional pain because they know that similar things go on and they aren't as "different" as they think. The fact that this book is a real life drama appeals to many people and makes the book more fascinating. Wolff does a wonderful job of making this book flow and connect. His down to earth writing style and structured plot bring the book together and leaves the reader with a contentment that most books about family issues don't.

I am a junior in high school and I read this book for my Advanced Contemporary Lit Class. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read a book that was not written for entertaining but for the value it personally brings to the author and to the reader.

Tobias Wolff is one of my favorite fiction writers, and here he presents the first part of his memoirs and proves adept at this genre, also. The story of his mom's life, it seems, is to get seriously involved with abusive, possessive and controlling men, who foist their ugliness on young Toby. Toby's mother is not a weak pathetic person, but is actually a vibrant, warm soul who is a poor judge of character. Toby's filial loyalty and genuine concern for his mom make him a sort of enabler, as he tries to be a sport and go along with each subsequent relationship.
All the characters in the book are compelling, from Toby's absentee dad to his self-absorbed, immature, poor-sport stepfather, Dwight, to the friends he makes. Toby is a typical adolescent--he's good-hearted, but can be very bad; he's smart, but can do stupid things, he's compassionate, but capable of cruelty.
Wolff's writing will break your heart and then make you laugh out loud. (His description of the Lawrence Welk show was more vivid than a TV re-run could be.) You know that Toby and his mom will not only survive their horrible domestic situation, but will eventually prevail.
The movie, which features L. DiCaprio as Toby and R. DeNiro as Dwight, is a pretty good rendition of the book. But read the book first. There are few memoirs in its class.

A unadorned and candid memoir of the childhood, similar style to that of Hemingway. What could have been a wrenching story full of emotions is actually a very calm observation of his surroundings and his actions to survive and to find whatever happiness and connections to the violent world around him.

A solid memoir that delves deeper than the movie. Crisp writing with solid moments of introspection and literary grace. The book seems to illustrate more than just a boy trying to escape an abusive stepfather, as Wolff injects deep social commentary and tasteful humor at just the perfect opportunities. At times you love Wolff for his compassion toward his mother and intelligence to escape, then feeling slightly annoyed by him through a certain amount of arrogance and naivete. Nevertheless, his ability to write a sentence is page turning to say the least, and his ability to paint his own picture with originality is quite impressive. His descriptors and tone were flawless. In the end, a worthwhile read. Wolff is a talented American original.

I originally purchased this memoir hoping that I could recommend it to my male high school students. There are not a lot of books that appeal to them. I appreciated the writing style very much - his prose is complex and haunting. I think that what the work is lacking is a series of DRAMATIC events. When someone reads a work, they want these huge things to happen. Wolff nicely illuminates how it's the frequent "little" things that lead to our real problems. I understood this completely while I was reading it and I felt the narrative was understaed in a dark and interesting way. However, because the plot lacks these big events, I don't know if my high school aged boys will fully embrace it the same way they embrace "The Basketball Diaries", for example. That being said, this is better written than "The Basketball Diaries".

This book proved a superb read. In all seriousness, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I do so because, beyond his instinctive narrative style that both captivates and delights, Wolff substantiates the hard and fast rule in life that no matter how difficult of a childhood, one can always improve upon oneself.

Wolff is currently a professor at Stanford (unless things have changed without my knowledge), earned his B.A. at Oxford and received his M.S. at Stanford as well. This is incredible considering the childhood he laid out in This Boy's Life. Wolff was not a good little boy, to say the least. He was guilty of lying, stealing, cursing, fighting, forgery, and being rather unattached to anything or anyone but his mother. He spent several years with an abusive stepfather who, while never out-and-out beating him, put him through psychological trauma just as severe. It's amazing this man has become one of America's greatest writers, but I suppose all great talent was forged in blazing fires.

Wolff does not mince words and, while not a simple read, his memoir it moves very quickly. He did a masterful job of pacing the narrative so as to make things suspenseful without any truly dramatic plot twists. After all, this is his real life. Real life is something that happens, not something that follows a plot line. Wolff takes his real life and weaves it into a fascinating tale that I couldn't put down.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

I remember being extremely impressed with the film adaptation of "This Boy's Life", and so I couldn't resist a secondhand copy at my local thrift store. Surprisingly, the film is actually somewhat better than the book. But Wolff's prose is very good and the story of his childhood is quite absorbing.

Now about his childhood, the film adaptation makes much more of his stepfather-from-hell (portrayed by Robert DeNiro). However in the book he is viewed somewhat as a bullying simpleton rather than a brutal monster. It seems the author's rotten childhood is as much due to his under-achieving attitude as it is to his repressive stepfather. This makes the story a bit less dramatic but of course more realistic.

Bottom line: it's always interesting to read a book about someone else's tortured childhood, especially when it is written so well. Recommended.

In this memoir, author Tobias Wolff tells his story of growing up in the 1950s. He begins at age 10, five years after the breakup of his parents' marriage, when he and his mother are heading West to escape from one of her boyfriends and to start a new life. From this point on, the book details their struggles, which revolve around two main (and clearly related) themes: their financial difficulties and the conflicts which arise with the various men who appear in their lives.
The majority of the book centers around a period when Tobias (or Jack, as he was known then) and his mother live with Dwight, a man his mother married in an attempt to keep Jack out of trouble. To some extent, Wolff attempts to portray Dwight as all-bad, but like all people, Dwight is simply flawed. His positive efforts to help Jack are often wiped out by his subsequent negative behavior--e.g., he helps Jack get a paper route but then spends Jack's money without his knowledge, he encourages Jack to become a Boy Scout but won't complete the paperwork to allow him to become an Eagle Scout, etc. Jack's family life was dysfunctional well before the term ever existed.
I read this book after seeing a reference to it in another memoir, Alice Sebold's Lucky. Like Sebold, Wolff tells his own story with a largely dispassionate voice and very simple language, both of which dilute the impact of his words somewhat. His emotions more clearly shine through when he mentions what his past brought to his current life, but unfortunately, he does not do this very often. Furthermore, Wolff gives the reader only a small glimpse of what the future holds in store for Jack, which I found to be frustrating. Overall, this was a compelling memoir, but it left me wanting more than what Wolff offered.

Rather than reproduce the entire book in this review, I just want to say, briefly, that it's not easy to feel a lot of sympathy for Toby Wolff as a boy because he sabotages your empathy with his crazy behavior. But he's a real person. You feel his emotions, his predicaments, and his frustrations. That's because the writing here is so clear and direct. And as a result, you carry on, sadly knowing how trapped he is in his childhood, his powerlessness. I'm glad I read this book, but I'm not sure why. I think it's because it validates our spirit of survival, and verifies the utter stupidity of some parents toward their children. I recommend it to anyone who has had rough sailing while growing up, which is probably the entire human race.

This is not your All American idyll. No, young Wolff is not the barefoot boy with cheek. It seems his life would be everything he could desire if only he weren't drawn to the wrong sort of peers and if only his mother avoided abusive men. After a few pranks such as drawing a bead with a 22 rifle on passers by, and pelting with eggs a well-to-do man in his new Thunderbird Convertible it almost seems like just desserts for Wolff and his mother to be swept away to an isolated company town in the Cascade Range of Washington State with the nefarious Dwight the dim-wit.
But whoa, the new man in their life is a monster who eventually is banished from their lives by court order. Halleleuh! But for two or more indelible years, this is the sort of stepfather who makes young Wolff deliver newspapers for the brief years of their association, claiming to be saving the funds for the boy but instead spends the money on fancy hunting rifles for great horseback hunts which never happen. A drunkard and a master of brow beatings, the one redeeming factor dull Dwight brings into Wolfe's life is an association with the Boy Scouts and indeed Wolff credits his scouting days with his later decision to join the army.
As presumably a real life memoir, the writing is excellent. It does however beg the question; what is craft without purpose? The strength of This Boy's Life is the candor and comfort with Wolff recounts his struggles. Hurray then for candor, hurray for the anti-hero but please Turn on the Lights! Must this hero live in darkness? Give him purpose, direction, and discipline. Most of all, give him fresh thunder!!!