Tobias Wolff has long been one of my favorite short story writers.

I had never read a book-length work from him, so while browsing a book store, this book caught my eye.

The reading experience, much like Wolff's short stories, was deceptively easy. It seemed un-complex and straight forward in a particularly mid-century male American way.

But what brews beneath the simple writing in this book is a story full of pain, anguish, shame and longing.

The structure and form of the book, including the uncomplicated language and sentence structure, is perfectly fit to the age and life experience of the main character - a young Tobias "Jack" Wolff.

To write with any more wisdom would have betrayed an authorial distance that is only present near the end of the book.

The rest of the time, the story is best served through this author/character closeness, so we can truly feel how he felt as a boy.

We feel a full set of emotions about Dwight, about Wolff's mother, brother and friends, and about his childhood preoccupations or social and academic struggles.

The concept of lying or adherence to truth is always central to any memoir.

After reading in this genre deeply for a few years now, I'm tired of this question.

There's a clear betrayal of trust when authors like James Frey pen a fake memoir.

But I'm more in the camp of David Carr, say, who knows he is an untrustworthy narrator but that doesn't keep him from trying to tell the best version of his story he can.

In fact, lying is a central feature in this book for good reason.

Young boys, under the thumb of a tyrannical head of household, learn to lie for a reason.

It's a skill for self preservation.

And to remove that from Wolff's story would be to deny a central and fascinating part of this book.

In a time when discussions about creative nonfiction are dominated by concerns regarding truth in memoir, the nature of consciousness, identity, and fragmentation, it is easy to overlook the basics such as story. These profound conversations, significant in their own right, indicate the emergence and continued growth of a necessary codification of the genre.

However, the meta conversations can become tiresome, grandiose, and even absurd. Sometimes, we need to remember that readers are drawn to the story and will stay if it is well-crafted. Wolff's memoir serves as a reminder of this simplicity - that a great book simply needs to excel as a story. By story, I mean a million indefinable nuances that may not necessarily be related to high drama or theatrical events (unless, of course, these elements are masterfully rendered). So, what else do I mean by story? In a strict sense, I refer to all the elements that a fiction writer carefully attends to: point of view, dialogue, pacing, energy, language, characterization, mood, setting - the basic vocabulary of literary analysis.

In contrast to fiction (but not too sharply), CNF can offer reflection, lyricism, musing, and the opportunity to depict a mind at work and play. I love these aspects of the genre. However, these complexities should not be explored at the expense of the story. Simply indulging in the story is a fundamental satisfaction that reading and writing provide.

And that's exactly what I did while reading This Boy's Life: I reveled in its mastery. I delighted in the dialogue that was so clear it seemed to sing; I basked in the energetic, fresh language; I became completely immersed in the cinematic atmosphere, scenes, and actions; I relished in the spare, powerful moments of insight; the pacing; the voice, and so on. The book reminded me that a great book doesn't have to be filled with post-modern frills. Presenting a story in a way that fully engages the reader is sufficient. If my reduction of all craft advice to simply telling a STORY seems like an oversimplification, it's only because Wolff makes it appear so effortless.

I fell in love with the book from the very first page, and it continued to unfold as I read - revealing heartbreak, humor, snappy scenes, and a rich, sepia-toned 1950s atmosphere. Wolff's story never flags or loses its way; from the first scene, when a tractor trailer truck loses its brakes and young Toby "Jack" Wolff and his mom watch it careen off the road, the reader is hooked. The scene goes on to be captivating, and so much is achieved in just three short sentences. The concise description and action are enough to immediately engage us, and we learn a great deal about his mother and their relationship from this small yet powerful moment. We learn about Mom's tenderness and helplessness just from the way she says "Oh, Toby." And, of course, the truck's failure serves as a wonderfully sardonic metaphor for their lives.

One of the things I adored most about this book was its blend of liveliness and darkness. This mixture of sweet optimism for life in the face of all contrary evidence won me over with its authenticity. Wolff is also a great humanist - capable of portraying the impossibility of life, its tangle of hope and disappointment. Just after the tractor truck scene, we are plunged into this delicious, impossible journey - both physically and emotionally.

There are numerous other elements that I delighted in: Wolff's use of insight without shattering the spell or stepping out of the evocative voice and atmosphere of his boyhood; his quirky, effective use of dialogue; and his rich, revealing characterizations of others and himself. Throughout the book, Wolff provides such moments of insight, which come in quick, infrequent, terse bursts of language that carry layers of suggestion and deep resonance.

There are so many other examples, such as when he implicates himself and wins over the reader. There's the moment he forges transcripts to get into boarding school, or the moment he freezes and is unable to apologize to Mr. Welch, the farmer. But my favorite moment occurs when he falls down an embankment while partying with friends and decides to stay lost for the evening, even as he can hear them calling his name. In this scene, we get to see not only a bit of the scheming boy we have come to love but also a hint of the man he might become - flawed, grandiose, and romantic.

Toby Wolff's life took a significant turn when, as a boy, he and his mother left Florida for Utah in pursuit of plutonium riches. At this stage, Toby, due to his admiration for the author Jack London, insisted on being called Jack. This marks the beginning of his account of a tumultuous childhood, filled with his mother's string of bad boyfriends and numerous new starts. Once his mother meets and marries Dwight, Jack's life undergoes a change, and unfortunately, it's not for the better.

This book is truly outstanding and evokes a wide range of emotions. Wolff is a highly skilled writer, with every word carefully chosen and carrying weight. It's disheartening to realize that this was Wolff's actual childhood and not a fictional tale. Although some may have had more difficult circumstances, no one should have had to endure what he did while living with Dwight. Wolff's use of vivid imagery is so powerful that it makes the reader feel as if they are right there in the room with him as he describes yet another encounter with his stepfather. One wishes that his mother could have been a stronger presence for his sake, but it's understandable that it wasn't easy for her, considering she was also in a terrible situation.

The book was adapted into a movie quite well, although some details may be a bit jumbled or mixed around. However, this doesn't detract from Wolff's story or his experiences. Based on a 10-point scale, the quality of writing earns a 9, the pace an 8, plot development an 8, characters an 8, enjoyability a 9, insightfulness a 10, and ease of reading a 10. With no photos or illustrations, the overall rating is an impressive 5 out of 5 stars.

Nomadic SA Chick's Book Reviews

BEWARE! This book can be dangerous for you.

In this book, you might see yourself as this character, or you might recognize someone else who you know or are very close to. If you're ready to learn about the horrors of a boy's life and the things he did that he might have regretted, then "This Boy's Life" is for you. It's about how this boy's life unfolded as he went through his childhood being the worst person possible.

What I like about this book is the author's honesty. He tells us everything! Even the fact that he loved his step-sister Norma. He lied to his family and friends and did the most horrible things imaginable for a teenager. He lied, drank, tried to run away from home - everything is crazy in this book, yet it kept me hooked.

Personally, I liked the book for its honesty and its most awkward moments, such as when he shoots a squirrel and does nothing about it. Then there's the part with his step-sister Norma. However, what I didn't like about this book is the lack of a set order for events. Sometimes it's a flashback of Jake's life, and at other times, he's talking about his child. Another thing that confused me was his step-dad Dwight coloring his entire house and everything white. I was always looking for symbolism in this book, but there seemed to be none because it's a memoir.

The book helped the character realize who he was and how he always imagined things to escape reality, which in turn helped him become who he is. Similarly, in the book I read for English class, "Of Mice and Men," the characters of George and Lennie, although migrant workers, always used their imagination to envision a bright future with a ranch, their own land, and a happy life - but it never happened in the book.

I think overall this is a great book to read for anyone interested in an utterly honest book. As long as you don't try to symbolize the things in the book, you should be fine. It's a great book for anyone who wants to read it, as it's confusing, funny, and yet capable of keeping the reader hooked.

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I was truly struck while reading other reviews of this book. Many people stated that it read so smoothly and engagingly that it could have easily passed for a novel rather than a memoir. What also caught my attention was that the author, Wolff, chose to include some incidents that didn't paint him in a favorable light. For example, beating a poor, frightened dog with a mop. However, Wolff is such a talented writer that I found myself not really caring about how many dogs he might have beaten. The voice in the book was so captivating that it carried me through the relatively mundane, rainy, and overcast world of a grim childhood set in the gloom of Washington State. The local high school, Concrete High, is located 40 miles away in a town called Concrete because of the factory there.

His mother makes one poor decision after another when it comes to men, but then again, she is a victim of her times. She is cheerful, bright, and pragmatic, yet utterly trapped in her life as a low-paid single parent working as a waitress or an office worker. This was the 1950s, after all. One scene where all the women in the house have to go out and find men to marry and protect them is especially heart-wrenching. You can sense that they would all have been better off living together in that house and raising their kids without the men they brought into their lives.

What I had expected from hearing about this book was a kind of torturous account of living with an evil stepfather. But that wasn't the case at all. Even the stepfather, Dwight, feels trapped and suffocated by the dark mountains and forests. He is not painted as a complete monster, although he does hold a knife to his mother's throat and beats up on Tobias when he was a kid.

There are parts of this book that are truly hilarious. Tobias grubbing for badges at Boy Scouts, his constant lying and self-invention, his self-professed snobbery, and his determination to fake enough recommendations and grades to get a scholarship and escape from there.

I almost wanted to jump into the book and kick the character to Paris when his uncle offers him a way out and a life in that city.

Even though this book is pure Americana, with its references to cars, guns, Boy Scouts, and the drinking high school days, nothing feels cliched.

Thoughtful and poised, it is a story that is well worth reading.

“Outrageous self-invention.”

One thing this book vividly demonstrates to me is that one doesn't necessarily have to be an academic or an overly intellectual person, often referred to as an "egghead," to be an outstanding storyteller.

Wolff masterfully narrates the story of his life, skillfully capturing a certain, essential aspect of America that has now been lost to history. However, it is still recognizable and undeniably the predecessor of our present-day country.

For the majority of his life, Wolff resided in small towns in Washington and grew up during the period between the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The part of America where he lived was intellectually unenlightened and stagnant. Most people had no aspirations for a brighter future beyond the life they led in their town. They married early, had many children at a young age, and worked blue-collar jobs. The youth resorted to drugs and alcohol for stimulation, numbing their restlessness and melancholy. The society was relatively homogeneous and was rife with all kinds of prejudices that Wolff continuously observed, seeing his friends and family either grappling with them or propagating them: sexism, racism, nationalism, and classism. Amidst all of this, Wolff walked a tightrope through adolescence, attempting to conform to the image of the ideal man revered by his society while also striving to figure out what he truly wanted for himself and who he desired to become.

There is so much more that Wolff elucidates than what I have described here. Essentially, this book serves as a portal through which the reader can look and envision what America was like. Even though my upbringing differed from his, I can still identify certain aspects of his life in mine because many of these experiences are deeply ingrained in the nature of America, and some life struggles are shared among people regardless of their race, sexuality, or class.

This truly is a remarkable book about growing up in America.

This Boy's Life is a captivating memoir penned by Tobias Wolff. Throughout most of the book, however, he chooses to go by a different name - Jack.

Right from the start, I found myself completely engrossed in the lives of Jack and his mother. They are constantly on the move, leaving one place after another and one boyfriend after another. We join them as they depart from Florida and head to Utah, and it doesn't take long to realize the instability that plagues Jack's life.

Eventually, his mother remarries a rather crazy man named Dwight. Dwight is always on some sort of power trip and takes complete control of Jack's life. That is, until Jack manages to take it back.

I did enjoy reading this memoir. There was a point where I realized that we were only getting a small snapshot of Wolff's life. The book seemed to keep moving forward, but we didn't really progress in Jack's life. I can understand the author's need to spend time developing Jack's rationale for his decisions and looking back to evaluate what had an impact on his life. However, towards the end, it just felt a bit stuck for me. And then the quick summary of what happened next didn't flow as smoothly as the rest of the book.

I did enjoy the antics and the story overall, but ultimately I was left feeling a bit unsatisfied. What's more, this book now strikes a chord with all the gun violence and Nazi sentiments that are so prevalent in our current history. It makes for an interesting juxtaposition, considering the environment we are in today and the cyclical nature of history. This was my first book by Mr. Wolff, and it gave me a fascinating peek into his juvenile life that no doubt contributed to his success today.

This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest growing up memoirs of all time. It is still taught in schools, which attests to its significance. The story is penned by an accomplished and highly celebrated writer who later came to direct the Stanford Creative Writing Program. It details his completely wild and sad youth, marred by bad choices made by both his mom and him. Along the way, there is a parade of many awful men. Wolff is an elegant and insightful writer. His descriptions are often darkly hilarious as he repeatedly portrays an assurance that he would be just fine and very successful, facing the future with aplomb. However, time and again, everything crashes and burns.

This is heartbreakingly beautiful writing about a terrible growing up period that he somehow managed to survive and write about. Throughout the book, you find yourself smiling at his current insights, shaking your head at his past failures of insight, and his complete lack of models for growing up. It's truly unclear how he made it through. He makes it evident that he had no luck, no character, and no compass. But despite all this, you can't look away. You can't stop reading. It's that exhilarating. It took me 30 years to pick up this book (why? I have a plethora of books laying around!), but it was most definitely worth the wait.

I absolutely adored this book. Wolff's writing is astonishingly vivid and perfectly paced. It was so captivating that I could scarcely bring myself to set it aside. This memoir has the feel of a brilliant novel. A review in the San Francisco Chronicle states in part, "we are also moved by the universality of his experience." However, the only aspect I found to be universal was just how dreadful it can be to be a teenager.

This is a truly unique and deeply moving story that is expertly told. Wolff alternately reveals the depth and confusion of his younger self. As an adult and a mother, I can clearly see the scared boy lurking behind the bravado. It's a powerful exploration of youth and the journey towards self-discovery.

The book takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster, making them empathize with Wolff's experiences and understand the complex emotions that come with growing up. It's a must-read for anyone who has ever been a teenager or has an interest in the human psyche.

Wolff's ability to paint such a vivid picture of his past is truly remarkable, and it makes this memoir a standout piece of literature.

Tobias Wolff was a highly respected professor at Stanford University. He was also my friend Laurel's Italian partner, and his friends affectionately called him Toby. However, I have to admit that he scared the bejesus out of me.

This might seem technically unfair, considering I never once had the opportunity to speak to him or take one of his classes. But I firmly believe it was that mustache of his that did the trick. It was an extremely intimidating mustache that seemed to command attention and respect.

Of course, all of this personal impression has absolutely nothing to do with the book he wrote, which I happened to love dearly. I just thought you'd be interested to know about this little quirk in my perception of him.