This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff
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Book Reviews of This Boy's Life: A Memoir
Book Review: A Haunting Memoir
Summary: 5 Stars
My first Wolff book, Old School, was disappointing thanks in part to all I had heard about Mr. Wolff's writing. I appreciated the good writing but was disapointed in the plot line, so vowed to pick this book up and give Mr. Wolff another try. I was very pleased I did.
One's first thought after reading this book is: How could someone with such a messed up up-bringing turn out so well? It must be like the blues - you have to have a tough youth to make it in the memoir category.
This is the story of Mr. Wolff's youth where he follows his mother from one abusive man to another. Much of the book is centered on the years with his first step-father who is: a) a drunk; b) abusive to him; and, c) constantly accuses him of being a liar, a fraud and a cheat in one form or another. It turns out that the step-father is right. However, most of the time young Wolff gets away with his drinking, stealing and fraud, thanks in part to his mother's belief he can do no wrong.
One of the most impressive things about this memoir is that Wolff gives himself no quarter. Not only does he recognize the bad things he does, he recognizes his bad motives and bad thoughts - even those that do not get acted upon. He is brutally honest about himself. Also, without saying outright, he recognizes his mother's weakness in picking men.
Again, Mr. Wolff's writing is terrific. It is fittingly stark for the portrayal of the subject matter. The descriptions of the other characters in his life and Chinook and Concrete (the towns in which he lived and went to high school, respectively) draw a perfect picture.
This memoir is well worth the time. It will stay with you for long after the reading.
Book Review: Raw, Ragged, Rough...and Completely Absorbing
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up This Boy's Life at a book sale because, frankly, the cover appealed to me.
I read the first two pages and was completely drawn in. This is the story of a boy whose father is absent, whose step-father is abusive, and whose mother is trying to make the best of a grim life. That should make for a sympathetic reading; however, I didn't find Toby/Jack likeable.
He was a habitual liar, a fighter, a shoplifter, a sneak. He didn't do drugs because they weren't available and he didn't "do" girls. He managed to find many other avenues full of trouble. I wondered as I read, how we could know we're getting the truth from the adult when the boy lied all. the. time.
In an interview, the author explained that one of the survival mechanisms he used was creating an alternate persona that in some degree he believed was a real person. One of the most engaging episodes near the end of the book involves Wolff's receiving a scholarship to attend a tony prep school in the east based entirely on transcripts and letters of recommendation that he himself wrote.
I was regularly delighted by the vocabulary and his ability to pack so much meaning into so few words. The analysis of his childhood choices and actions, the understanding of some of the undercurrent of his life is absorbing. Life was raw and he doesn't smooth any edges.
This is a heartbreaking book, in the way Angela's Ashes is a heartbreaking book. One measure of a book is how long its story impacts you. This one stayed with me long after I had read several other books.
Book Review: A Masterful Writer Forged Through Fire
Summary: 5 Stars
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
Book Review: This Boy's Triumph
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: Transformation
Summary: 5 Stars
Tobias Wolff's memoir is about a boy's search for his true identity by trying on a number of personae. The reader also gets some interesting insights to his divorced mother and her complex personality. Tobias starts his journey to self-discovery by demanding that he be called "Jack", not Toby, because Jack sounds more macho, more like a guy, or even a dangerous rake. His mother Rosemary seldom forbids Jack anything; and when she tries to put her foot down, she's overruled by the loser men in her life, most notably and comically pathetic: Dwight. Jack tries every role from juvenile deliquent to cigarette-smoking, gambling Boy Scout. No kidding!
The book is a page-turner without the cheap thrills, unless you count his sneaking home from school at around age 11 to "play" with the.22 one of Rosemary's boyfriends gave him. He aims at people on the street with the empty rifle. The game is no fun with an unloaded rifle, so he gets his ammo and is back to the apartment window aiming at people below.
This is my second read of the book which I selected for an American Lit student studying memoirs. I'm sure this one has very high interest for all ages.