Simon Baker reviews a collection of short stories by Tobias Wolff
This book contains ten new stories from Tobias Wolff, plus a selection from the three volumes of short stories he published between 1981 and 1997. It affords the reader a fascinating panorama of Wolff’s entire career, and shows that, like Bach’s variations, Wolff’s stories move around the same central themes, exploring them in different ways so as to extract every possible nuance from them. Wolff’s interest throughout is morality, in particular the way we handle difficult moral choices (difficult because the evidently ‘wrong’ choice usually promises a better immediate return); the results of that interest are 31 tales, all set in America, which together make a profoundly affecting statement on the privileged yet fraught task of being human.
In This Boy’s Life (1989), one of his two memoirs, Wolff describes how he cheated his way into a top boarding school as a teenager to escape his abusive stepfather (he was found out and expelled after two halcyon years).
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in