New Releases by Tobias Wolff

"A classic of the genre."--New York Times The 30th anniversary edition of Tobias Wolff''s "extraordinary memoir" (SF Chronicle), now with a new introduction by the author. Thirty years ago Tobias Wolff wrote a memoir that changed the form. The "unforgettable" (Time)This Boy''s Life is the story of the young, tough-on-the-outside but vulnerable Toby Wolff. Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother travel from Florida to Utah to a small village in Washington state, with many stops along the way. As each place doesn''t quite work out, they pick up to find somewhere new. In the story of their journey, Wolff masterfully recreates the frustrations, cruelties, and joys of adolescence and presents a deeply poignant exploration of memory, dreams, and how we create a self.

An anthology of fiction that covers the vast regions and peoples of America west of the Continental Divide. The collection positions established authors including Tobias Wolff, Maile Meloy, Brian Evenson, Melinda Moustakis, Nona Caspers, and Mark Maynard, alongside emerging voices, and includes a foreword by Claire Vaye Watkins.

A collection of twelve short stories that showcases Tobias Wolff’s extraordinary talent, available in a deluxe paperback edition—part of Ecco’s The Art of the Story Series. In The Garden of the North American Martyrs, Tobias Wolff’s first collection of short fiction, hailed the arrival of a major talent and the beginning of an acclaimed, bestselling career. In each of these sharply crafted stories, his characters, drawn from everyday life, stumble over each other in their baffled yet resolute search for the “right path.” Among the characters in these twelve stories 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 endures the offensive conviviality of the ship’s social director.

The Barracks Thief is the story of three young paratroopers waiting to be shipped out to Vietnam. Brought together one sweltering afternoon to stand guard over an ammunition dump threatened by a forest fire, they discover in each other an unexpected capacity for recklessness and violence. Far from being alarmed by this discovery, they are exhilarated by it; they emerge from their common danger full of confidence in their own manhood and in the bond of friendship they have formed. This confidence is shaken when a series of thefts occur. The author embraces the perspectives of both the betrayer and the betrayed, forcing us to participate in lives that we might otherwise condemn, and to recognize the kinship of those lives to our own.

To American soldiers in Vietnam, "back in the world" meant America and safety. To Tobias Wolff''s characters, Back in the World is where lives that have veered out of control just might become normal again. Unfortunately, the men and women in these gripping, pungent, and wonderfully skewed stories have only the vaguest notion of what normal is. A gentle priest finds himself in a Vegas hotel with a hysterical, sun-burned stranger. A show-biz hopeful undergoes a dubious audition in a hearse speeding across the California desert. An aging soldier is distracted from a night of philandering by a gun-toting neighbor and a suicidal enlisted man. As he moves among these unfortunates, Wolff observes the disparity between their realities and their dreams, in ten stories of exhilarating lucidity and grace. Stories included are: "The Missing Person," "Say Yes," "The Poor Are Always With Us," "Sister," "Soldier''s Joy," "Desert Breakdown," "Our Story Begins," "Leviathan," and "The Rich Brother." "Terrific...The magic of his fiction cannot be explained. It is the ancient art of the master storyteller."--Tim O''Brien

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.

Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive, the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his own illusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye for detail, pitiless candor and mordant wit that made This Boy''s Life a modern classic.

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."

This collection of stories—twenty-one classics followed by ten potent new stories—displays Tobias Wolff''s exquisite gifts over a quarter century.

The PEN/Faulkner 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 against the unrelenting hostility of a new stepfather, his experiences are at once poignant and comical, and Wolff masterfully re-creates the frustrations, cruelties, and joys of adolescence. His various schemes—running away to Alaska, forging checks, and stealing cars—lead eventually to an act of outrageous self-invention that releases him into a new world of possibility. Praise for This Boy’s Life “Wolff writes in language that is lyrical without embellishment, defines his characters with exact strokes and perfectly pitched voices, [and] creates suspense around ordinary events, locating the deep mystery within them.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “[This] extraordinary memoir is so beautifully written that we not only root for the kid Wolff remembers, but we also are moved by the universality of his experience.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A work of genuine literary art . . . as grim and eerie as Great Expectations, as surreal and cruel as The Painted Bird, as comic and transcendent as Huckleberry Finn.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “Wolff’s genius is in his fine storytelling. This Boy’s Life reads and entertains as easily as a novel. Wolff’s writing and timing are superb, as are his depictions of those of us who endured the 50s.” —The Oregonian

Culled from over 100 prestigious writing programs around the United States and Canada, this collection offers a splendid array of writing talent that showcases the literary stars of tomorrow. Includes stories written from such programs as Breadloaf, the Sewanee Conference, the University of Iowa, and others.

From some of the worlds most recognized faces, including the Clintons, the Kennedys, the Scorsese''s, and the Dalai Lama, to those who are remarkable only in their ordinariness, these timeless photos capture brothers from all walks of life, politicians, businessmen, athletes, actors, and artists, in their most intimate moments. A unique and compelling exploration of love and friendship, rivalry and intimacy, Brothers is certain to become a perennial favourite.

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.

"J''avais toujours su que je porterais un jour l''uniforme. C''était essentiel à ma conception de l''authenticité. Les hommes pour lesquels j''avais eu du respect quand j''étais jeune avaient tous servi leur pays, ainsi que la plupart des écrivains que j''admirais - Normari Mailer, Irwin Shaw.. et bien sûr Hemingway qui était mon phare en toutes matières." A vingt-deux ans, le jeune écrivain Tobias Wolff décide de faire table rase d''un passé incertain d''adolescent menteur pour devenir enfin "un homme d''honneur". Il intègre l''armée et, grâce à ses talents d''auteur de sketches et de chansons satiriques, part pour le Vietnam en ayant obtenu le grade d''officier. Avec une éblouissante maîtrise de la mémoire, le narrateur fait alterner les réalités quotidiennes et banales de la guerre : la peur, l''ennui, la routine et la débrouille, avec celles si nostalgiques de ses vingt ans : les voitures, les filles, les vieux succès de Sinatra, les facéties avec les copains, le premier amour avec Vera. L''innocence, la pureté et parfois la candeur prennent un relief particulier face aux images d''une armée souvent grossière et brutale. Et cette confession à l''écriture cristalline, émaillée d''humour et d''ironie, se métamorphose en une émouvante leçon d''humanité. Une fois de plus, Tobias Wolff mêle l''art du romancier à l''immédiateté de l''expérience personnelle.

The provocative, award-winning short story collection from one of America''s most exciting young fiction writers is about three paratroopers waiting to be shipped out to Vietnam. Six other highly acclaimed stories are also included.

Hunters in the Snow is a classic short story by Tobias Wolff centered around the suburbs of Spokane and featured in In the Garden of the North American Martyrs. The story deals with three characters hunting together in the woods; Kenny, who is hard and brutal; Tub, who is fat, a target of ridicule, and lags behind the rest of the party; and Frank, who is the most "frank" of the group. Each character has a distinct personality which changes as the story progresses. The story reaches its climax when Tub shoots Kenny in what appears to be an accident. Tub and Frank seem to be taking Kenny to a hospital, but wind up stopping in a diner and a roadhouse in a strange chain of events. The story ends with them driving in a direction that is opposite to the one of the hospital. This story is believed to be based upon the painting Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel, a painter involved in the realism movement.