Tobias Wolff Books

An outstanding collection of new and classic stories, from one of America's greatest living short story writers

One of the sinuous and subtly crafted stories in Tobias Wolff's new collection--his first in eleven years--begins with a man biting a dog. The fact that Wolff is reversing familiar expectations is only half the point. The other half is that Wolff makes the reversal seem inevitable: the dog has attacked his protagonist's young daughter. And everywhere in The Night in Question, we are reminded that truth is deceptive, volatile, and often the last thing we want to know. A young reporter writes an obituary only to be fired when its subject walks into his office, very much alive. A soldier in Vietnam goads his lieutenant into sending him on increasingly dangerous missions. An impecunious mother and son go window-shopping for a domesticity that is forever beyond their grasp. Seamless, ironic, dizzying in their emotional aptness, these fifteen stories deliver small, exquisite shocks that leave us feeling invigorated and intensely alive.

The follow-up to the author's memoir This Boy's Life which describes his experiences during the Vietnam War. As a young officer serving in the Mekong Delta, he ricocheted between boredom, terror and grief for lost friends. Tobias Wolff is the author of Hunters in the Snow.

Exploring the complexities of life after war, this collection of ten stories delves into the struggles of characters seeking a semblance of normalcy. From a gentle priest encountering a frantic stranger in Vegas to a hopeful performer facing an unusual audition in a hearse, each narrative reveals the tension between reality and aspiration. Wolff masterfully captures the poignant moments of his characters, highlighting their disconnection from societal norms and the often harsh truths they face, all with a blend of lucidity and grace.

A memoir of a young boy's unusual travels with his mother. The author recreates his boyhood experiences, relating how he and his mother travelled throughout the United States, and tracing his experiences and changes from young boy to manhood against the background of a violent and wildly optimistic America.

It's 1960, in America, at a prestigious boys' public school, a place of privilege that places great emphasis on its democratic ideals. A teenage boy in his final year, on a scholarship, has learned to fit in with his adoptive tribe while concealing as much as possible about himself and his background. Class is ever present, but the only acknowledged snobbery is a literary snobbery. These boys' heroes are writers - Fitzgerald, Cummings, Kerouac. They want to be writers themselves, and the school has a tradition whereby once a term big names from the literary world are invited to visit. A contest takes place with the boys admitting a piece of writing and the winner having a private audience with the visitor. When it is announced that Hemingway will be the next to come to the school, competition among the boys is intense, and the morals the school and the boys hold dear - honour, loyalty and friendship - are tested. No one writes more astutely than Wolff about the process by which character is formed, and here he illuminates the irresistible strength, even the violence, of the self-creative urge. This is a novel that, in its power and its beauty, in its precision and its humanity, is at once contemporary and timeless.

The Bloomsbury Birthday Quids are small editions of short stories by major writers, in a format and style of the Bloomsbury Classics. Printed on high-quality paper, designed by Jeff Fisher, the books should become collectors' items. This title is Two Boys and a Girl by Tobias Wolff.

Over 10 years ago, Tobias Wolff edited a collection of stories called "Matters of Life and Death" which included such writers as Jayne Anne Phillips, Raymond Carver and Richard Ford. This collection brings together 36 American stories.

The thirty-three stories in this volume prove that American short fiction maybe be our most distinctive national art form. As selected and introduced by Tobias Wolff, they also make up an alternate map of the United States that represents not just geography but narrative traditions, cultural heritage, and divergent approaches.

Among the characters you'll find in this collection of twelve stories by Tobias Wolff, are a teenage boy who tells morbid lies about his home life, a timid professor who, in the first genuine outburst of her life, pours out her opinions in spite of a protesting audience, a prudish loner who gives an obnoxious hitchhiker a ride, and an elderly couple on a golden anniversary cruise who endure the offensive conviviality of the ship's social director.Fondly yet sharply drawn, Wolff's characters stumble over each other in their baffled yet resolute search for the "right path."