This Boy's Life

Tobias Wolff

Jul 2010 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Oliver Wyman

About this audiobook

First published in 1989, this memoir has become a classic in the genre. With this book, Wolff essentially launched the memoir craze that has been going strong ever since. It was made into a movie in 1993.

Fiction writer Tobias Wolff electrified critics with his scarifying 1989 memoir, which many deemed as notable for its artful structure and finely wrought prose as for the events it describes. The story is pretty grim: Teenaged Wolff moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington State to escape her violent boyfriend. When she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be more evenly matched than might have been supposed. Deception, disguise, and illusion are the weapons the young man learns to employ as he grows up—not bad training for a writer-to-be. Somber though this tale of family strife is, it is also darkly funny and so artistically satisfying that listeners come away exhilarated.

Ratings and reviews

Loved this book...the story was engrossing and a mirror to most people's souls i think. It's captures the confused and lost feelings a lot of us feel when we are young but can't put into words. I gave it a 4 star rating because i feltthe ending was rushed and left wanting. I realize it's a memoir,and so hadn't actually ended but still i wanted to know howa few storey lines wrapped up and didn't get that. I wish i could come into contact with a child so in need of love and understanding and be that for them...I'll keep my eyes and heart open for that now,so this book may just be a life changer! Toby, I pray you've found what you were searching for buddy.

About the author

Tobias Wolff was born in Birmingham, Alabama on June 19, 1945. He served in the military as a paratrooper during the Vietnam War. He received a B.A. in 1972 and a M.A. in 1975 from the University of Oxford and a M.A. in 1978 from Stanford University. He held faculty positions at Stanford University, Goddard College, Arizona State University, and Syracuse University. He was also a reporter for the Washington Post. His first collection of short stories, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, won the St. Lawrence award for fiction in 1982. His other works include Back in the World, In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of a Lost War, The Night in Question, Old School, and Our Story Begins. The Barracks Thief won the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction in 1985. This Boy's Life: A Memoir won the Los Angeles Times Book prize in 1989 and was made into a 1993 film starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. He also won three O. Henry Awards in 1980, 1981, and 1985 and the National Medal of Arts in 2015. He edited several anthologies of short stories including Matters of Life and Death: New American Stories, A Doctor's Visit: Short Stories by Anton Chekhov, and The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories.