Book summaryTobias Wolff's dark and eccentric memoir about growing up rebellious in the 1950s is a funny, heartbreaking portrait of a vulnerable boy trying desperately to keep things together as he and his skittish mother travel aimlessly around the US, avoiding the violent lover she left behind. Finally settling in the Pacific Northwest when she marries Dwight--one of literature's most unforgettably abusive stepfathers--young Toby resorts to lies and subterfuge in order to survive and, ultimately, to escape. Wolff's bleakly hilarious narrative, published in 1989, has been justly praised as an outstanding example of the memoir genre, and was made into a 1993 movie with Leonardo Di Caprio, Ellen Barkin, and Robert De Niro. |
This Boy's Life: A Memoirby Wolff, Tobias
Book desription: New York, New York, U.S.A.: Perennial, 1990 Very-good+, clean condition. NO remainder marks or price clippings. Tight spine, clean pages. Page-tanning. 288 pages. NO writing, marks or tears inside book. - In this unforgettable memoir of boyhood in the 1950s, we meet the young Toby Wolff, by turns tough and vulnerable, crafty and bumbling, and ultimately winning. Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother are constantly on the move. Between themselves they develop an almost telepathic trust that sees them through their wanderings from Florida to a small town in Washington State. Fighting for identity and self-respect against the unrelenting hostility of a new stepfather, Toby's growing up is at once poignant and comical. His various schemes—running away to Alaska, forging cheeks, and stealing cars—lead eventually to an act of outrageous self-invention that releases him into a new world of possibility. Publishers Weekly In PEN/Faulkner Award-winner Wolff's fourth book, he recounts his coming-of-age with customary skill and self-assurance. Seeking a better life in the Northwestern U.S. with his divorced mother, whose ``strange docility, almost paralysis, with men of the tyrant breed'' taught Wolff the virtue of rebellion, he considered himself ``in hiding,'' moved to invent a private, ``better'' version of himself in order to rise above his troubles. Primary among these were the adultsdrolly eccentric, sometimes dementedwho were bent on humiliating him. Since Wolff the writer never pities Wolff the boy, the author characterizes the crew of grown-up losers with damning objectivity, from the neurotic stepfather who painted his entire house (piano and Christmas tree included) white, to the Native American football star whose ultimate failure was as inexplicable as his athletic brilliance. Briskly and candidly reportedWolff's boyhood best friend ``bathed twice a day but always gave off an ammoniac hormonal smell, the smell of growth and anxiety''his youth yields a self-made man whose struggle to fit the pieces together is authentic and endearing.. Trade Paperback. Very Good +. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.
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