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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsOld Schoolby Tobias Wolff
Staff Pick
In this novel we see vulnerable and clumsy youth parallel to the polished and comfortable status which class and money provide. We meet determination, impersonation, and observation as the future opens and closes with perennial flair. Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)"It's 1961, and our narrator's final year at a very swanky, and very self-consciously literary, boarding school. The school's Little Lord Fauntleroys in-training are, with the exception of the narrator, rich, and they're all thoroughly enamored of the 'literary life.'...Remarkably, Old School, while Tobias Wolff's seventh book, is his first novel. It's an elegant ode to writers, and to writing, from one of our most exquisite storytellers." Adrienne Miller, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review) "Throughout Old School, Wolff displays exceptional skill in capturing the small sights and sensations that evoke the whole rarefied world he's taking us back to....He conveys the sublimation and sexual messaging that occur all at once when the boys sing to a master's young wife ('It was a kind of ravishing'), and with the same exactitude discerns the boys' wary relations with one another....It can stand with the best of what some old boys (Louis Auchincloss, Richard Yates) have produced in a waning American genre." Thomas Mallon, The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The author of the genre-defining memoir This Boys Life, the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning novella The Barracks Thief and short stories acclaimed as modern classics, Tobias Wolff now gives us his first novel. Determined to fit in at his New England prep school, the narrator has learned to mimic the bearing and manners of his adoptive tribe while concealing as much as possible about himself. His final year, however, unravels everything hes achieved, and steers his destiny in directions no one could have predicted. The schools mystique is rooted in Literature, and for many boys this becomes an obsession, editing the review and competing for the attention of visiting writers whose fame helps to perpetuate the tradition. Robert Frost, soon to appear at JFKs inauguration, is far less controversial than the next visitor, Ayn Rand. But the final guest is one whose blessing a young writer would do almost anything to gain. No one writes more astutely than Wolff about the process by which character is formed, and here he illuminates the irresistible power, even the violence, of the self-creative urge. Resonant in ways at once contemporary and timeless, Old School is a masterful achievement by one of the finest writers of our time. Review:"[A] marvelous novel with resonance for old and young alike. [Wolff's] storytelling is economical, his prose is elegant, and his meditations are utterly timeless. Some readers may wish to turn from the last page to the first and begin again." Keir Graff, Booklist Review:"A witty but ultimately rather pointless debut....Wolff writes well page by page....An odd pastiche that never coheres...Wolff offers some nice vignettes that add up to considerably less than the sum of their parts." Kirkus Reviews Synopsis:The author of the genre-defining memoir This Boy's Life and The Barracks Thief now presents his first novel about a young boy at New England prep school obsessed with visiting authors. About the AuthorTobias Wolff lives in Northern California and teaches at Stanford University. He has received the Rea Award for excellence in the short story, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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