This Boy’s Life is a breathtaking memoir by one of America’s finest writers. This heartbreaking and exhilarating story reveals the indelible mark left on the heart and soul of parents, family life, and childhood. With his signature wit, generosity of spirit, and a sharp eye for detail, Tobias Wolff offers us a unique portrait of growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s—from the dawning awareness of sexuality to a harsh but loving mother to terrifying physical confrontations with other boys at playgrounds to a special relationship with his stepfather that changes their lives forever.
Toby Wolff s extraordinary memoir of his childhood and early adolescence, This Boy s Life, is a classic coming-of-age story packed with the powerful emotions that define our young lives. With frankness and humor, Wolff captures the unique feelings of youth: bewilderment, fear, delight, wickedness, and awe at the mysteries of adulthood. Through it all is an elegant simplicity; this is a rare book about growing up that will never grow old.
This Boy’s Life brings the complexity of family and childhood to vivid life in these nine unforgettable stories. With its uncompromisingly honest portrayal of the ordeals he and his mother endured after briefly living with an abusive stepfather, Wolff’s memoir is one of the finest coming-of-age narratives ever written. These vivid tales range from life in a half-completed oil rig off the coast of Alaska to preadolescent learning curves on Cape Cod, from junior high school skirmishes to encounters with adults who challenge his perceptions of the world.
About This Boy’s Life Book
This unforgettable memoir, by one of our most gifted writers, introduces us to the young Toby Wolff by turning 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, yet they develop an extraordinarily close, almost telepathic relationship.
As Toby fights for identity and self-respect against the unrelenting hostility of a new stepfather, his experiences are at once poignant and comical, and Wolff does a masterful job of re-creating the frustrations and cruelties of adolescence. His various schemes – running away to Alaska, forging checks, and stealing cars – eventually lead to an act of outrageous self-invention that releases him into a new world of possibility.
