Tobias Wolff

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...

The Award—winning author recounts coming of age in 1950s Washington State with his mother and abusive stepfather in this classic memoir. 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. As he fights for identity and self-respect...

A story of siblings and faith from short-story master Tobias Wolff Frances has always been protective of her younger brother Frank. The children of a brutal father and a sick, defenseless mother, Frances fought to keep her brother safe. And throughout all of his adult failings-from drug addiction to near-fatal car crashes-she has stood by his side. Now Frank has found religion. Standing in his crisp white shirt and restrictive tie, he's eager to...

Two drugged-out couples contemplate life and morality in "Leviathan," a classic short-story by the masterful Tobias Wolff. For Helen's thirtieth birthday party, her husband decides to throw her a small party. Armed with booze and three grams of cocaine, the four partyers-Helen, her husband, and another couple-spend the night and the next morning in a drug-induced stupor. As their talk turns to past misdeeds and shameful acts, the couples begin to...

Mr. Givens' obituary is nothing remarkable, hardly something to remember at all. He led a quiet life, served in the Army, was married to the same woman for forty-two years, and worked at the same job practically his whole life. He wasn't a baseball player or a movie star, he was the furthest thing from a celebrity. In fact, the only thing noteworthy about his obituary is what happens after it runs in the newspaper, when he shows up in the office of...

April's father, a psychology professor, has had a breakdown and has landed in the Alta Vista State Hospital. Her stepmother, Claire, is just waiting for him to get out so she can leave on a trip to Italy-a trip April is worried Claire won't come back from. She needs Claire, at least until she finishes high school. She needs her not just as a companion but as a worldly woman who can tell April about men and their desires … men far different from...

Miller is unlucky. That's why he's in a foxhole with the rest of Bravo Company. That's why his dad is gone and his mother remarried. That's why his teeth are falling out. Then, when the first sergeant tells Miller his mother has passed away, Miller thinks he's finally gotten lucky. Surely it's another Miller's mother, and now he can get away from the battalion for a couple days thanks to the Army's error. But Miller knows the future rarely has happiness...

In this short-story from Our Story Begins, three friends confront their relationships to one another as they work on plans to build their very own airplane. Clark's parents are rich, supplying the boys with all they need to follow their pursuits, making films and building catapults. Meanwhile, Freddy's family is dealing with the loss of his older brother, and Freddy's friends are having a hard time knowing how to act around him anymore. The boys...

Tobias Wolff's first two books proved how the short story can “provoke our amazed appreciation” (New York Times Book Review). Now after writing numerous other works, he returns to the short story with fresh revelations—about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother—that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary: a retired Marine enrolled in college while her son trains...

Lady, suffocating in the car on a hot summer's day, slips into a feverish dream. Robert, her husband, watches her slip into unconsciousness as he drives. He's a soldier, a man of principle, well-educated and well-adjusted. But Robert is also a man with an agenda; he has married this young, wild lower-class girl to spite his father, and now he regrets it. How much does Lady know about Robert's intentions, and how far will he go to set things straight?...