Tobias Wolff has written about his life in the acclaimed This Boy's Life and in In Pharoah's Army. Born in Alabama, he was raised in Salt Lake City and in the mountains above Seattle. He briefly attended prep school in Pennsylvania, then joined the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He thereafter took degrees at Oxford and Stanford. Since 1980 he has taught literature and writing at Syracuse University.
The phrase "Unabridged Stories" on the package of this program of seven short stories refers, somewhat misleadingly, to the fact that the stories themselves are unabridged, but this selection is, in itself, an abridgment of a larger collection of the same title (LJ 9/15/96). Wolff's reading of his own work does little to recommend it. Often the author as narrator can provide important clues as to the rhythm of the prose and the personality behind it. But if an author's voice is ordinary, and he or she reads without distinction, that is how the work will strike the listener. Wolff's work is clever, perceptive, and informed by a compassionate sense of pathos, but his narration, while intelligent, only lends it an air of semiprofessionalism, and for all their virtues, the stories are not compelling enough to override this weakness. When an audio selection costs roughly the same as the larger printed collection ($23), listeners‘and purchasers‘are justified in their expectation to hear something extraordinary. That is precisely what is missing here. Not recommended.‘Peter Josyph, New York
While some gifted writers make a show of their virtuosity, others, like Wolff, make what they do seem so artless that only upon reflection is the meticulous craftsmanship and intelligence of their work apparent. Wolff's first book of short fiction in over a decade (after his two acclaimed memoirs, This Boy's Life and In Pharaoh's Army) finds him writing at the top of the form. In each of the 14 stories in this splendid collection, Wolff's tone is unadorned, and a good number of the events he describes are just this side of prosaic; yet they are graced by an unerring sense of just how much depth can be mined from even a seemingly inconsequential situation. In "Firelight," an unnamed narrator recollects looking at rental apartments with his glamorous but impoverished mother; their brief interaction with another family showing them an apartment they can't possibly afford opens up into a meditation on home, family and belonging. The book begins with the wry and surprising "Mortals," in which a journalist is fired for writing the obituary of a man who proves to be very much alive. Other strong stories include "Flyboys," about an uneasy trio of youthful friends, and "The Chain," in which a man's desire for revenge after his daughter is attacked by a dog begets a cycle of violence with unforeseen consequences. In several stories, teenage protagonists and young men serving in Vietnam suddenly experience the instinct of self preservation; they and other characters learn to test the limits of their moral certitude. Wolff's characterizations are impeccable, his ear pitch-perfect and his eye unblinking yet compassionate. 30,000 first printing. (Oct.)
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