The 30th anniversary edition of Tobias Wolff's "extraordinary memoir" (SF Chronicle), now with a new introduction by the author.
Thirty years ago Tobias Wolff wrote a memoir that changed the form. The "unforgettable" (Time) This Boy's Life is the story of the young, tough-on-the-outside but vulnerable Toby Wolff. Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother travel from Florida to Utah to a small village in Washington state, with many stops along the way. As each place doesn't quite work out, they pick up to find somewhere new. In the story of their journey, Wolff masterfully recreates the frustrations, cruelties, and joys of adolescence and presents a deeply poignant exploration of memory, dreams, and how we create a self.
"So absolutely clear and hypnotic . . . that a reader wants to take it apart and find some simple way to describe why it works so beautifully."-- New York Times
"Wolff writes in language that is lyrical without embellishment, defines his characters with exact strokes and perfectly pitched voices, [and] creates suspense around ordinary events, locating the deep mystery within them."-- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"A work of genuine literary art . . . as grim and eerie as Great Expectations, as surreal and cruel as The Painted Bird, as comic and transcendent as Huckleberry Finn." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"[This] extraordinary memoir is so beautifully written that we not only root for the kid Wolff remembers, but we also are moved by the universality of his experience." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Wolff writes in language that is lyrical without embellishment, defines his characters with exact strokes and perfectly pitched voices, [and] creates suspense around ordinary events, locating the deep mystery within them." -Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Wolff's genius is in his fine storytelling. This Boy's Life reads and entertains as easily as a novel. Wolff's writing and timing are superb, as are his depictions of those of us who endured the "50s." -Oregonian
Tobias Wolff has received the Rea Award for excellence in the short story, the National Medal of Arts, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He lives in Northern California.
Grove Press
Pub Date: December 17, 2019
1.1" H x 8.2" L x 5.5" W
336 pages
Paperback