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Title This Boy's Life

Author	Tobias Wolff
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Autobiographical novel
Publisher	Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
Released	26 January 1989
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	288 p. (hardback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-87113-248-6 (hardback edition)

This Boy's Life is a memoir by Tobias Wolff first published in 1989. It describes the author's adolescence as he wanders the continental United States with his itinerant mother. The first leg of their journey takes them from Florida to Utah, where Mom, fleeing an abusive partner, hopes to get rich quick finding uranium (they do not). Eventually Wolff's mother becomes involved with Dwight Hansen (see below), and they settle in Concrete, Washington, north of Seattle, a place with plenty of natural beauty and, in their case, more than its share of personal desolation.

The book is distinguished by the nonjudgmental tone of the narrative voice, and the defenseless way in which the author presents his own delinquent exploits. It is also marked by its uncluttered, lyrical language.

The book's first paragraph is as follows:

Our car boiled over again just after my mother and I crossed the Continental Divide. While we were waiting for it to cool we heard, from somewhere above us, the bawling of an airhorn. The sound got louder and then a big truck came around the corner and shot past us into the next curve, its trailer shimmying wildly. We stared after it. 'Oh, Toby,' my mother said, 'he's lost his brakes.'

The book's protagonist, Toby, and his mother first stop at Utah to cash in on the area's quantities of uranium. There, his mother settles down with a tattooed war veteran named Roy. Toby attends catechism classes, eventually being baptized with the new name of Jack Wolff, modelled after Jack London. Roy eventually gives Jack a Winchester .22 Rifle, much to his mother's chagrin. Eventually, when Jack's mother finds that Roy follows her home to make sure she does what he wants, she realizes the controlling and dangerous nature of Roy's personality, and she and Jack leave without telling Roy, taking a bus to Seattle.

In Seattle, they settle in a boardinghouse, and for a while his life passes relatively uneventfully. Finally, when a few of the other women in the boardinghouse are engaged, they convince Jack's mother that she too must get married, and arrange a meeting with some suitors. One, a man named Dwight, stands out particularly, and Jack and his mother meet him and his three children living in the fictional small town called "Chinook", three hours away from Seattle, for Thanksgiving. Dwight's family is made up of Skipper, the eldest boy, Norma, the middle child, and Pearl, the youngest girl. Jack's mother eventually marries Dwight, and they move in with him and his family.

Jack quickly realizes that this new family is much worse than his previous life, as Dwight forces a series of humiliating punishments upon Jack, and argues with Jack's mother. Through the whole story, Dwight is only pleased a few times; both when Jack fights another boy, Arthur. While his siblings are not unkind, his eccentric stepfather makes life difficult, eventually hitting and beating him. He becomes a Boy Scout, doing well and even getting close to the rank of Eagle Scout.

Jack eventually falls in with a delinquent group in school, and his grades fall. He begins drinking, and driving at night without permission. He tries a series of schemes to leave Dwight and his mother, as by this point Norma and Skipper have moved out and been married. He eventually manages to communicate with his brother, who is attending Princeton thanks to his father's money. Jack details a straight-A and exemplary life, and his brother believes him and is optimistic that Jack could start a new life at a prep school. Jack falsifies a report-card and set of recommendation letters, and is eventually accepted to Hill prep school on the East Coast.

At this point, Jack leaves Dwight's house to go to a friend's to stay. He later robs Dwight, stealing his numerous guns and hunting equipment in order to fund his tuition. The novel ends as Jack (now re-using his old name, Toby) and a friend are driving back from the pawn shop, and although the novel details Toby's expulsion from Hill, he and his friend are for the moment elated.