This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of This Boy's Life: A Memoir
Book Review: A Journy through Life
Summary: 5 Stars
America is said to be the land of the free. This freedom provides a wide variety in the ways that people choose to live their lives. Everyone has a different and unique family situation. Dysfunctional families exist all over the nation. "This Boy's Life: A Memoir", by Tobias Wolff, puts you in the shoes of a young kid growing up in a dysfunctional family. The main character in the story is the author Tobias Wolff in his childhood. In an effort to escape his abusive father, Toby and his mother move from Florida to Utah to try to get rich from uranium. In Utah, Toby makes friends with the trouble makers at school and becomes a master of deception. As the story progresses, Toby struggles with his identity. He wants to be the son his mother expects him to be, but he can't stop lying and stealing. Later in the story they move to Washington where Toby's mother remarries a man named Dwight, who also turns out to be abusive. And the cycle continues.This story is told very true to life. Wolff tells his story very well so that even if you do not live in a dysfunctional family, you can still understand the harsh situation that people are in across the country. Some families only have a mother, others only a father. Whatever the situation may be, unless someone has lived in a situation like this it is hard to imagine what life might be like in a single parent dysfunctional family. In the book, Wolff gives a child of a unique family situation a voice, and brings his story to life. Wolff tells the story well enough that you understand emotionally, what Toby is going through. Throughout the story, Toby is met with some common conflicts a lot of people encounter during adolescence. How many people can say they have never in some way lied, stolen, or questioned their identity? Not very many. The book is a journey through Wolff's life, but at the same time it's a journey through a lot of people's lives.
This book reminded me of some very valuable life lessons. It reminded me that difficult situations like Toby encountered are not punishments or barriers, but rather character builders. In the story, Toby learned to cope with the absence of his father, and he also learned to search for positives in a world full of negatives. I think most people would agree that situations like Toby's only make you a stronger person. Living and experiencing pain and bad luck, you learn to deal with the things that life throws at you. Your experiences and make you who you are. I think Toby learned a lot from what was happening around him. For him, growing up in a dysfunctional family, I think showed him what he didn't want to turn out to be.
The story ends with Toby and his friend Chuck driving in the car singing along to the radio. Toby had been through a lot, and was still in a tough situation, but for the first time he seemed happy. He had let go of all of the things that were happening to him, and he learned to overcome his situation. This ending sent a very powerful message to me. It reminded me that no matter what life throws at you, you always have hope, and you can always move on.
I think this is a great story because it deals with real life issues. This book is about life, the good and the bad. Though this is a very depressing story, I found this book to be very inspiring.
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: A Must Read
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read this book twice. Love it! The story is very compelling: a young boy and his divorced mother trying to find their way in the world. But it is Wolff's clear, colorful writing style that makes this so wonderful. And his honesty. He pulls no punches, especially on himself.
What intrigues me is how someone who had as difficult a childhood as "Jack" (Tobias Wolff) was able to pull himself up and become so accomplished. Wolff is now the head of the English department at Stanford. He is also one of the country's most respected short story writers (if you haven't read his short stories you are missing out).
So read the book. And all of his work. You won't regret it.
Book Review: A boy's life, told by a master
Summary: 5 Stars
Wolff makes great writing seem effortless, which it is clearly not, even for him. The story is excellent, and would be worth reading even if it weren't so masterfully written, but it's the quality of Wolff's writing that places "This Boy's Life" on my short list of required reading. He exposes a lack of self-worth and insight that takes me back to my own adolescence. At times, his level of acceptance and almost forgiveness of Dwight (the abusive stepfather) seems forced, but perhaps Tobias had a better therapist than I had. I can't wait to read "In Pharoh's Army".Book Review: A memoir
Summary: 5 Stars
The first thing that struck me as amazing about this book and its author was how sincere and truthful they both are. We all have things about our lives that we try desperately to hide, and the story of our lives just become one major event after another, (I was born, I went to school, I got a job, I got married, I had kids). We forget that what we did between all those things, the positive and the negative, is what makes our lives complete. To reveal all those ugly facts about ourselves requires great skill and courage, which this book and author demonstrates. When a friend asked Ernest Hemingway to write memoir of his life, he replied, "But my career, my career." Even the great Hemingway, whom Tobias Wolff admires, did not have the courage to reveal his life with the same truth and sincerity as Tobias Wolff. In writing this book, the authors has reached a level that not many people of the world share together.