This Boy's Life

This unforgettable memoir of boyhood in the 1950s, a true modern classic, introduces us to the young Toby Wolff, by turns tough and vulnerable, crafty and bumbling. Separated by the divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother are constantly on the moves. As he fights for identity and self-respect against the unrelenting hostility of a new stepfather, his experiences are at once poignant and comical, and Wolff masterfully re-creates the frustrations, cruelties, and joys of adolescence. His various schemes—running away to Alaska, forging checks, and stealing cars—lead eventually to an act of outrageous self-invention that releases him into as new world of possibility.