Brilliant. I mean to also read Geoffrey Wolff's memoir of their father, [book:Duke of Deception].

Still one of my all time favorite memoirs.

This is by far the best memoir I have ever read. I found it because it was described as such and it did not disappoint. Toby and his mother move across the country and she tries to make a life for them. He suffers from lack of supervision and picking the wrong friends, but does manage to stay out of serious trouble. Fans of The Lincoln Highway will find similar stories set in the same time period.

Beautiful, well written, sad, funny, honest. Love books like this.

3.75

I'm not usually much for memoirs and I read this for my book club. There were some hiccups I had in the beginning where I really felt I was forcing myself to continue. But that said, Wolff is a very good writer! I really want to read Old School now. The story of his life was quite ordinary but compelling? If that makes sense. The abusive step-dad and useless mother happen all the time unfortunately and the way Wolff wrote about his relationship with his step-dad was a little confusing. Sometimes the step-dad (can't remember his name for some reason) came across as just plain weird in his attention to Tobias/Jack and sometimes it was simply physically abusive. I guess like it actually was in real life, I never knew 100% where he stood with his step-dad. What we talked about a lot in my book club was how much of it we felt was actually true, he just was an exaggerator and an admitted liar by nature. But in the end it didn't really matter to us if it was true, it was a good solid read.

Earns its keep in the hall of classics by maintaining a lyrical sweetness throughout. That’s hard to do. TW has tricked me into liking him.

Wolff writes about himself honestly, depicting by turns a boy who is likable and dislikable, entertaining and pitiful. But while he is often self-deprecating, he is never self-righteous. He is also careful to make clear that his ruminations are coming from the older, wiser man, not the boy in the stories. These elements together won him my friendship, sympathy, and trust as a reader. An example from his book: "Because I did not know who I was, any image of myself, no matter how grotesque, had power over me. This much I understand now. But the man can give no help to the boy, not in this matter nor in those that follow. The boy moves always out of reach."

Tobias Wolff's memoir reads more like a coming of age story. Fraught with instability, abuse, broken homes and a boy just trying to find his place - Wolff's recounts his boyhood in 1950s Washington state with his mother. It was in reading Ann Patchett's collection of essays (These Precious Days) that I realized Tobias has a biological brother Geoffrey, who was raised by his father whom ALSO wrote a memoir. Effectively, Tobias recounts growing up with his mother and Geoffrey recounts growing up with his father - an interesting examination of what would have been if the parents hadn't divorced. In any case, Tobias grows through quite a bit of trials and tribulations and his mother is always trying to do the best thing for him - and it doesn't always end up being the best thing. I'm off to read Geoffrey's Duke of Deception to see how the other half lived.