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This Boy's Life

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 11,233 ratings · 661 reviews

This unforgettable memoir, by one of our most gifted writers, introduces us to the young Toby Wolff, by turns 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 identi...more

Paperback, 304 pages

Published January 20th 2000 by Grove Press (first published November 30th 1988)

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Dec 17, 2012 Jason added it

Shelves: read-2009

Tobias Wolff is a man known to those who love short stories as something of a master of the form. His novel, Old School failed to capitalize on his brilliance of the short form, so I must admit to some qualms about his memoir. I couldn't have been more wrong. Wolff analyses his upbringing with the clarity of an outsider, giving us insight into his deeds and (more frequently) misdeeds. From constant travels with his single mother escaping a bad relationship to an abusive step father, from mocking...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Shaun rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2013

Having just finished The Night in Question, I was looking forward to reading this. Though a memoir (not my usual choice) that is based on Wolff's childhood as opposed to a collection of short stories, I still had high hopes.

It was okay. The writing was strong and the author consistently provided lots of interesting insight about life in general, however, I just never really got into the story. The character I found most intriguing, his mother, a complex dichotomy whom Wolff describes as strong a...more

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Jun 22, 2008 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 11thgrade

This book is a memoir that involves a young boy, Toby(Jack)Wolff and his personal experience living life on the run. Jack and hisi mother is contantly moving after the separation with Jack's father. The story starts with Jack and his mother moving to Utah to make their fortune by mining Uranium. Jack was very close to his mother, who had a abusive childhod. His mom contantly involve herself with violent and abusive men. As a result, Jack is constantly seeking refuge in his imagination and lies....more

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Jan 25, 2008 Malbadeen rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Sarah

Recommended to Malbadeen by: Sarah's couch

Shelves: memoir-ish

I can't very well articulate why this book elicited a 5 star response from me, which is why I enjoyed it so much. Despite not being able to put my finger on it, I found myself wanting to get back to it all the time.
Not a reaction I typically have to memoirs by established authors.
He spoke in away that maintained the feel of adolescence without condescending hindsight or grandiose naivety. The writing seems so simple and concise and yet there were numerous times when I had to fight my urge to und...more

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Jan 27, 2008 Kevin Mellor rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Some books are good; some of them you read and the word "good" seems almost like an insult to place on them. This is one of the latter.

I picked this up after seing the movie version, specifically after the scene where Wolff's stepdad starts choking him because he didn't get the last of the mustard out of a jar before throwing it away. To this day, it's one of the most realistic depictions of violence I've ever seen in a movie. I wasn't sure how the book would live up to that, but to my amazemen...more

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Mar 10, 2009 Helen rated it 3 of 5 stars

This memoir would be overwhelmingly sad for me, had I not already read Old School by the same author and know that he becomes a successful author and teacher of literature at Stanford. But if you didn’t know that this child redeems himself in the end, this would be sad, a sad tale indeed.

Tobias’ parents divorced when he was a young boy, and his mother set off looking for a better life, leaving her oldest son with her ex-husband. In 1955 it was hard for a single mother, and life treated Tobias’...more This memoir would be overwhelmingly sad for me, had I not already read Old School by the same author and know that he becomes a successful author and teacher of literature at Stanford. But if you didn’t know that this child redeems himself in the end, this would be sad, a sad tale indeed.

Tobias’ parents divorced when he was a young boy, and his mother set off looking for a better life, leaving her oldest son with her ex-husband. In 1955 it was hard for a single mother, and life treated Tobias’ mother no better than the next. When the hard-scrabble life started to wear her down, she married a man who turned out to be selfish, mean, manipulative and vindictive.

While the challenges of the everyday events in Tobias’ life make for compelling reading, his honesty about his reactions to those events are what make the book worthy of the Pen Faulkner Award. He falls in with the unruly kids and makes terrible choices. But at the same time there is a bizarre innocence about him that simultaneously disappoints and endears. For instance, after scratching an unmentionable phrase on a bathroom wall, in his fervor to convince others of his innocence, he manages to convince himself as well.

Insight into his the lies he told and why he told them is, for me, the most fascinating aspect of This Boy’s Life. At the same time you want to strangle him for his deceits, his lies are what ultimately save him. He completely fabricates an application to a private boarding school, where he goes on full scholarship; despite the fact that he is a very poor student with nothing to recommend him. He is eventually expelled for poor grades, but while there he engages with a teacher or two who recognize that he is not lazy or stupid, but too far behind academically to keep up.

As the novel comes to a close, Wolff is headed off to war. Yet instead of ending there, the story flashes back to a time when he was, if not happy, at least hopeful.

Readers who enjoyed Rick Bragg’s All Over But the Shoutin’ will appreciate Wolff’s family portrait.
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Mar 01, 2013 Carlos M. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Lo autobiográfico está muy presente en su obra narrativa. Basta una mirada a libros como En el ejército del Faraón o Vieja escuela para darse cuenta de ello. En esa línea se encuentra Vida de este chico, publicada originalmente en 1989, una novela intensa, honesta y con mucho nervio en la que el escritor norteamericano Tobias Wolff repasa su infancia.
El protagonista es un chico llamado Tobias que se hace llamar Jack, en alusión al escritor Jack London. Conforme se avanza la lectura iremos enter...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Cindy Knoke rated it 5 of 5 stars

The four best memoirs I have ever read, and I have read too many, are Frank McCort’s, Angela’s Ashes, “Tobias Wolff’s, “This Boy’s Life,” Geoffrey Wolff’s, “The Duke of Deception,” and Jeanette Walls, “The Glass Castle.”

These books are similar in describing horrendous childhood’s of upheaval and instability, complicated by mentally ill, vagabond, eccentric parents, and a sort of lower middle class poverty. (I know that’s an oxymoron, read the books and you’ll understand). But the similarities go...more

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Aug 05, 2012 Allan MacDonell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Snobbery is something I sometimes think of as a virtue; that's the kind of reader I am. As a bit of a prig, I approached Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life with an anticipation of finding my rarefied sensibilities superior to the emotional range and veracity of any memoir that has roped in mass adulation and resulted in a Hollywood adaption. I was prepared for the sweet scorn for falsity and empty phrases that had prompted me to toss James Frey’s Million Little Feces into the backyard halfway throug...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Jan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wolff’s memoir of his nomadic, fatherless childhood searching for an identity and a future is hypnotically engaging. In search of wealth and the right man, his divorced mother moved Toby, who renamed himself Jack, from Florida to Utah to Washington State, where she married Dwight, definitely the wrong man, especially for Jack. "I was bound to accept as my home a place I did not feel at home in,” he writes, “and to take as my father a man who was offended by my existence and would never stop ques...more Wolff’s memoir of his nomadic, fatherless childhood searching for an identity and a future is hypnotically engaging. In search of wealth and the right man, his divorced mother moved Toby, who renamed himself Jack, from Florida to Utah to Washington State, where she married Dwight, definitely the wrong man, especially for Jack. "I was bound to accept as my home a place I did not feel at home in,” he writes, “and to take as my father a man who was offended by my existence and would never stop questioning my right to it.”

Jack descends with no remorse into a delinquency that includes drinking, lying, stealing, destruction of property, and ultimately, submitting falsified documents to get into a private school. Without sparing the details of his misdeeds, the adult Wolff keeps us on the boy Jack’s side. I was halfway through the book before I realized that the pathetic bully Dwight wasn’t the only Bad Guy—just one old enough to know better, unlike his stepson. I thought of all the rebellious, unreachable boys I’d butted heads with as a teacher and understood Dwight’s frustration with this unlovable kid who was the price of getting the woman he wanted. Even a kinder, gentler stepfather might have failed to tame such a boy.

But Wolff makes us understand that at the heart of a bad kid is the legitimate, if misguided, search for some kind of personal power. Watching World War II movies, Jack knew that “the point of the show was to celebrate the victory of goodness over evil….[But] the real point was to celebrate snappy uniforms and racy Mercedes staff cars and great marching, thousands of boots slamming down together,… to watch Stukas peel off and dive toward burning cities, tanks blowing holes in buildings, men with Lugers and dogs ordering people around. These shows instructed us further in the faith we were already beginning to hold: that victims are contemptible, no matter how much people pretend otherwise; that it is more fun to be inside than outside, to be arrogant than to be kind, to be with a crowd than to be alone.” That’s the trouble with being a victim, Wolff reminds us—it can make you aspire to tyranny.

Jack ultimately escapes to the private school he lied his way into, but can’t succeed there either and is eventually thrown out. He “wore himself out with raging” and then joined the army. Wolff ends the chronology there, Jack still unredeemed. But in the final passage he relives a nighttime ride with his friend Chuck. Believing they have broken free of their wrong-filled pasts and are on the lip of a limitless future, they break into song. “It was a good night to sing and we sang for all we were worth, as if we’d been saved.”

Jack/Toby grew up to be one of America’s most respected writers and teachers. I wish he would write a sequel; I want to know the details of the continued transformation from a powerless boy to a man who, having found himself, empowers others.
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Mar 08, 2011 Texx Norman rated it 5 of 5 stars

This Boy’s Life is amazing. It is an honest accounting of Tobias Wolff’s early life. I imagine the temptation is to pull your punches to veer away for conflicts that you know about only in hindsight. If you write a memoir and you are the protagonist, then it is natural to want to be the good guy, the smart one, the one who did everything right. In this accounting, Wolff reveals a kid who was sometimes dumb, stupid, mean, and pitiful. I was drug up during this same time period, and while my exper...more

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Feb 22, 2011 Michaela rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, biography-autobiography

This Boy’s Life is a memoir dealing with guilt, abandonment, cruelty and lies, but most of all it is a novel about a never dying belief of one’s self. It is an upsetting story about abuse, and about wanting and believing that you deserve a better life. Written in a spare, clear and hypnotic Hemingway-way, a fixating novel.
Toby Wolff, later Jack, and his mother are on the road. They are moving to Utah to start a new life, but unfortunately his mother’s boyfriend Roy comes after them. Jack and hi...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Andrew Rowe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Dwight kept on babbling on about the virtues of Concrete but all I could think about was shooting that turkey”. This boy’s life is a masterful memoir piece written by Tobias Wolff, it is written through the point of view of Toby who represents Tobias Wolff as a child. The novel explores the truth of a child’s childhood. At times Toby can be an unreliable narrator; the reader might doubt some of the stories from this young anarchic live wire. Although the memoir is written through the point of v...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Hua rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book "This Boy's Life," by Tobias Wolff was written through author's lens in which included his memoir. This novel tells about a mother and son moving from place to place looking for a settlement. Caroline Wolff, the mother, wants to find a best place for his son, Toby. They moved to Seattle and met Dwight Hansen who Caroline thought would be best for Toby therefore they married. However everything wasn't like how Caroline thought due to Dwight Hansen's abusive attitute toward toby through p...more

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Sep 06, 2010 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: senior-year

From Dave Peltzer to Tobias Wolff, one thing holds true. Growing up independently will forever change the future ahead. Although Toby, also known as Jack, isn't as unfortunate as Dave, he shares the same emotional pain. Facing a divorce at a young age and having to follow his mother around, he has forever lost his brother and father. As his mother continuously moves, Toby is affected severely. He is not cared for by the other men he is exposed to which then makes him develop his own system of ha...more

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Sep 04, 2010 Hui Lin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 12th

This is a really depressing memoir. The protagonist, Toby, who later renamed himself as Jack, went through a tough life. After his parents divorce, Jack is separated from his father and brother to live with his mother. They move from place to place trying to make a living, and life for them was never stable. Jack's mother, Rosemary continues her life meeting various men who are abusive and violent. They didn't treat Jack really nice and as a result, he never got the love from family like normal...more

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Aug 29, 2010 Elise rated it 4 of 5 stars

This Boy's Life was on a list of books I got to choose from in order to throw together this year's 8th grade ELA reading curriculum. I was interested in adding a more modern memoir to the reading list (the other memoir option was "Night," which I have not taught successfully in the past). I've read some of Tobias Wolff before (Old School, some short stories) and liked it all, so I decided to give This Boy's Life a shot.

Within the first few pages, I started to regret my choice of adding this to m...more

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May 11, 2010 Katherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: awesome, underrated

Okay, so it's a complete coincidence that the first memoir I read after Running with Scissors, after which I vowed to go on a search for good confessional memoirs, turned out to be not only a stunning example of how to do it right, but also one of the best books I've ever read, one of those books that lands in your lap like a meteor, that makes you want to yell WHO IS THIS WRITER AND WHERE HAS HE BEEN ALL MY LIFE?

This Boy's Life focuses on how teenage Toby Wolff learned to stand up to his abusiv...more Okay, so it's a complete coincidence that the first memoir I read after Running with Scissors, after which I vowed to go on a search for good confessional memoirs, turned out to be not only a stunning example of how to do it right, but also one of the best books I've ever read, one of those books that lands in your lap like a meteor, that makes you want to yell WHO IS THIS WRITER AND WHERE HAS HE BEEN ALL MY LIFE?

This Boy's Life focuses on how teenage Toby Wolff learned to stand up to his abusive stepfather, and how he found ways to be a man that look nothing like the terrible role models he'd had in his family or in society at large. I now have three guy friends reading it for this message alone. Wolff doesn't cast himself as a suffering angel or innocent child, or lay heaps of blame at the feet of his mother, who, he surmises, "like everyone, must have wanted many different things at the same time."

This Boy's Life is simply a phenomenal book, told with rare maturity, empathy, and wit. Unlike other memoirs (cough) in which olive Princess phones, martinis with cocktail onions, and big-box radios are used as props to signify a time the author cannot immerse us into, this one pulls your worldview directly into the late fifties and into the feelings and thoughts of the era's inhabitants. It's all told in a simple yet elegant prose that never feels intrusive or writerly, and yet which great-sentence-lovers could eat with a knife and fork. I laughed out loud when Wolff described his stepfather's no-win bullying "as ridiculous as a gnome devising a series of trials for a treasure-seeker." Oh, and I knew I was in for it when I reached this gem on page 12 or so - to date, one of the best descriptions of guilt I have ever read:

"I thought about what to confess, but I could not break my sense of being at fault down to its components. Trying to get a particular sin out of it was like fishing a swamp, where you feel the tug of something that at first seems promising and then resistant and finally hopeless as you realize that you've snagged the bottom, that you have the whole planet on the other end of the line."

As they say on the internet, READ THE WHOLE THING.(less)

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Nov 12, 2009 Cabs C rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was one of the most interesting books I have ever read. It is an autobiography by author, Tobias Wolff. It tells of the beginning of his childhood until he finishes (or is expelled from) high School. Tobias and his mother (Rosemary) moved from place to place in search of job opportunities and a chance to enhance their living conditions. They have lived in places such as Florida, Connecticut, and Utah. The majority of the story takes place in Utah. There, Rosemary and Toby (or Jack, whi...more

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Nov 02, 2009 Alec Curtis added it

This Boys Life is written by Tobias Wolff. This book portraits the life of a young boy, Tobias but changes his name to Jack, who goes through many tough times in his life. His mom is always going in and out of abusive relationships and he is constantly getting in trouble. He moves from place to place to escape the relationships and so his mom can find a good paying job and that can put Jack through school. Jack is not the most fortunate boy you will ever see but he is given the opportunity by th...more

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Aug 04, 2009 Cindy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: five-star-memoirs

I read This Boy's Life in one day. It is that rare kind of memoir page-turner that compels not because of blood and gore, or because you have to see what the insane parents are going to do next, but because of the writer's voice itself. This is a boy you just want to listen to. He is so genuine and honest that even while throwing rocks through windows, forging checks, and lying to himself and everyone around him, I found him unbearably sweet and vulnerable.

EXCERPT:
"Her name was Alice. My class...more

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May 30, 2009 Kerfe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, biography-memoir

So many memoirs have recently been exposed as fiction, it's possible to lose sight of the selective filter that exists in anyone's memories, in anyone's words, in anyone's life.

Tobias Wolff's bittersweet growing up tale circles around truth and lies as an integral aspect of how humans define themselves. "It was truth known only to me, but I believed in it more than I believed in the facts arrayed against it." Time and again he tries to fit the life he hopes for, the child he wants to be, the per...more

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Aug 12, 2010 Juhi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 12th-grade-reading

This book is about a young Toby Wolff who suffers his times with his new step father after his mom and dad divorced and left him with his mother; his father and his brother were seperated from him. His father is quite rich who lives on the east coast but doesn't care at all to pursue his relationship with Toby. His parents don't care at all about him, they only care about themsleves which is proved difficult for Toby. His mom is very self-centered and doesn't take care fo him at all, she travels...more

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Nov 24, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow, I loved this one. I had been familiar with a few of Wolff's short stories (Bullet in the Brain is one of my all time favorites) but this is the first of his longer works that I had read. I felt it described the awkwardness, anxiety and tragic passivity of boyhood perfectly. I reltated to it on so many levels even though I grew up in a different place and time and had a completely different personality than the main character of the book.

It is a dark book, however. Which is something I might...more

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Aug 10, 2010 Meng Qian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-2011

In this memoir, the author Tobais Wolff depicts his unique, but unhappy boyhood with full of hardship. Toby’ father had abandoned his mother and him shortly after he was born. In 1955, he moved to Utah with his mother, Rosemary, attempting to make their fortune by mining uranium. While in Utah, he also attempts to begin a new identity with the name Jack. With the two violent and volatile men, Roy and Dwight, Jack had suffered as much pain as his mother. Fighting for identity and self-respect aga...more

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Apr 22, 2011 Kristy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the story of the author's 1950s adolescence, a time when he struggles to figure out who he is -- and who he may become -- in the wake of his parents' divorce. While reading it, I thought often of the challenges of being a single parent and of being a boy without a father, as both the young Toby and his mom battle loneliness and alone-ness. The apt title refers to the Boy Scout manual he so closely tries to follow and to the confused, searching life he leads throughout junior high and hig...more

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Sep 28, 2010 Alejandro Gomez rated it 4 of 5 stars

Book Report# 6
Sparks, Nicholas. The Notebook.USA. Grand Central Publishing: December 1999
Reason, Type and Setting:
The reason I selected this book was because I wanted a change from the adventure, science fiction, and somewhat childish books that I have been reading. So I decided on something more realistic, something that seems possible, something mellow and heartwarming; a romance story is what I chose. The story takes place between the years of 1946 and the present switching back and forth. Th...more Book Report# 6
Sparks, Nicholas. The Notebook.USA. Grand Central Publishing: December 1999
Reason, Type and Setting:
The reason I selected this book was because I wanted a change from the adventure, science fiction, and somewhat childish books that I have been reading. So I decided on something more realistic, something that seems possible, something mellow and heartwarming; a romance story is what I chose. The story takes place between the years of 1946 and the present switching back and forth. The setting takes place in the costal north of North Carolina
Plot:
The main plot of this story is sort of a forbidden love. I say sort of because the two main character in the story are a couple but the girl’s parents don’t want her dating him because since he is from the country they believe that he won’t be able to provide a good future for her because the girl’s parents are richer and from a higher class. Though this might seem like the main plot in the story there is also something else going on. Going back to the present, the couple is being shown older. The man is trying to reach deep inside of his partner’s mind to try to bring her back. He tries to do that because she is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and is not able to remember him or the memories that they had together as a young couple.
Character:
The character I would like to choose would be one of the main characters which is Noah. He is a young guy from the country who fell in love with this girl who had come to spend summer vacation with her rich family. He is tall tan and has light brown hair. What this character shows of him in the story is that he is a hard working young lad who is also honest and perseverant. This character showed me that by being perseverant in life that almost anything that you set your mind to can be achieved.
Evaluation:
In general I liked the book because it didn’t have any pointless parts; fillers are what I mean. The plot of the story is what I really liked since I feel that it can touch the heart of many with the romance it shows. Would I recommend this book? Yes, even though some would say they don’t like chick books they should still read it. As a guy it is hard to admit this, but I really liked the book.
One of the reasons I liked the character that I chose is because I can relate to him. In this story he showed his will of never giving up, how he would go against all odds to get what he wanted. I myself, feel that I am sort of that way. If I really want to achieve something I put a lot of effort into it and I don’t let small things stop me.
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May 07, 2010 Tom Gase rated it 3 of 5 stars

An interesting memoir about a boy, author Tobias Wolff, who is constantly moving from city to city until he ends up in Seattle with a horrible stepfather. The stepfather beats up Wolff, who in this book is known as Jack, for no good reasons (is there ever?) and because of this the book is a sad story. That being said, Jack isn't the greatest character in the world either, as he is constantly lying to everyone, and stealing from just about everyone. A couple of my friends really liked this book a...more

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May 11, 2007 Casey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adults

Tobias Wolff was a professor at Stanford. He was my friend Laurel's Italian partner. His friends called him Toby. He scared the bejesus outta me. This is technically unfair, as I never once spoke to him or took one of his classes. I think it was the mustache that did it. It was a very intimidating mustache.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the book, which I loved. I just thought you'd like to know.

4 likes · like · see review

Dec 22, 2012 Tanzim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 7th-grade

This book is a great example of confinement. The main character, Toby, doesn't want to stay with his stepfather, Dwight. He sometimes hits Toby and Toby feels anger and scared. I can tell that Toby is scared because of all the ways he is trying to get away from Dwight. Toby has applied to 10 different colleges and he got into one called Hill. Toby was looking desperate but when he got admitted to Hill a sense of relief ran through his body. Toby and Dwight aren't the best friends in the world b...more

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About Tobias Wolff

Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is a writer of fiction and nonfiction.

He is best known for his short stories and his memoirs, although he has written two novels.

Wolff is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, where he has taught classes in English and creative writing since 1997. He also served as the director of the Creative Writ...more

More about Tobias Wolff...

Books by Tobias Wolff

In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War

In the Garden of the North American Martyrs

Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories

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Quotes from This Boy's Life

“Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.” — 34 people liked it

“Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.” — 19 people liked it

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