Toby-Jack

This Boy's Life

I love how vivid his memories are. You feel like you can really get into the characters he introduces. Instead of being a third person watching from the corner of a room, you feel like you're actually a part of Tobias and are actually involved in his life.
In less than three hundred pages Tobias Wolff has taken us from watching as a ten year old and his mother flee an abusive boyfriend and travel across the states looking for a new life, to smoking and fighting between classes at Jr high, to battling a drunken stepfather, all the way to his escape into a wealthy college.
At various points in his book, Tobias lets us in on a few aspects of the wild imagination that gives us a tiny view of the earliest evidence of his artistic talent that would later become his claim to fame.
In the beginning of his memoir he mentions Alice, his pen pal in Phoenix. He described the adventurous life he made up for himself to seem like a better person in her eyes. This creation of better lives to live up to followed Tobias all through his life in school. And even as he was applying for college.
Stealing stationary from the office and typing up his own letters of recommendation to send off to various schools. Revising his report cards to look better.
He wrote of his conversations with his brother Geoffrey about the various short stories they had written.
The book ends before he becomes Tobias Wolff the Wonder-writer. But everything leads up to a marvelous turnout. I'll let you read the rest for yourself.