Old School

author
Tobias Wolff

what the back of the book says
The protagonist of Tobias Wolff's shrewdly — and at times devastatingly — observed first novel is a boy at an elite prep school in 1960. He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of his more privileged classmates. Like many of them, he wants more than anything on earth to become a writer. But to do that he must first learn to tell the truth about himself.
The agency of revelation is the school literary contest, whose winner will be awarded an audience with the most legendary writer of his time. As the fever of competition infects the boy and his classmates, fraying alliances, exposing weaknesses, Old School explores the ensuing deceptions and betrayals with an unblinking eye and a bottomless store of empathy. The result is further evidence that Wolff is an authentic American master.

what i say
A great story. Well written, interesting, and lyrical. A witty, entertaining look at some of the great literary figures of the century. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Once of those curl-up-in-an-armchair reads.

some of the hype
"Not a word is wasted in this spare, brilliant novel about the way that reading changes and forms our lives, and about how one learns to become a writer — and a conscious human being." —Francine Prose, People

"[A] fine offering, manly in spirit and style, less hangdog than the somewhat Carverian memoir....Wolff displays exceptional skill in capturing the small sights and sensations that evoke the whole rarefied world he's taking us back to..." —Atlantic Monthly

"In Old School, Wolff again proves himself a writer of the highest order: part storyteller, part philosopher, someone deeply engaged in asking hard questions that take a lifetime to resolve." —Los Angeles Times

"A sharply drawn, acutely felt novel of moral inquiry....Wolff has put his readers in the landscape tracked across by writers as different as J. M. Coetzee, Philip Roth, and, going back, Conrad and Hawthorne."
—The Washington Post Book World

other things this author has written
This Boy's Life
Night in Question: Stories
The Barracks Thief
Back in the World: Stories
In the Garden of the North American Martyrs: Stories
In Pharoh's Army: Memoirs of a Lost War