This Boy's Life, by Tobias Wolff

So, I'm reading This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff; a memoir. The first thing that grabbed me in this book and is exactly that, the attention grabber, was indeed, the attention grabber... My point moreover is that it started with a very good attention grabber. Starting with a boiling radiator, often caused by too much water, too little coolant, and a blocked aircanal (just for anyone who wants to know why a radiator boils..., oh and it could be a bubble too), Toby and his mom are stuck on the side of a hot mountain highway. Then a semi-truck goes flying by, horn blaring, carreening down the mountain. "He's lost his brake!" (1). The sickened feeling of knowing what comes next sank into my stomach as mother and son peered over the edge of the now gaurdrail free mountain curve. The truck was billowing smoke from its upside-down engine bay, the whole top of the trailor and tractor crushed by its own falling weight. Obviously this has no connection with the book, but it says a lot about Wolff's style. It is casual, almost too casual for me, so this is the perfect way to start the book because it grabs the readers guts and yanks them into the book and still managers to bring you into the story.

The plot thus far is relatively simple and cliche. Father and mother got an angry divorce and now the child and mother are going cross country to start anew. I myself find this to be an overexamined predicament in way too many books so already I can feel myself dragging. However this story is about a boy, not a boy and his mom. We are introduced to some early issues. Cliche as it is the mother pathetically fails at finding the uranium ore that the two have come cross country for and can't find a job. This applies ample amounts of stress to the nerves in the left side of my head. Despite this Wolff spends little time on it and proves this book is worth reading with focusing on him. Toby hates his name. He wanted to be called Jack. "Odds were good that I'd never have to share a classroom with a girl named Jack" (8). Even in just this one small part of him we see into Toby's personality. He ends up calling his father to talk it over. The father of course wants him to keep the name he rightfully gave him at birth. He didn't last long. Jack it was. His mother who had disapproved was now more excited about it to spite her hated ex-husband. Toby we see here is an almost classic hot-headed young boy, probably almost in his teens if not already there (age is not told yet). He even went to catechism classes to acheive his new name. One other thing readers can deduce about Tobias Wolff is that he is a rather random person. This is noted in his writing. In one page he jumped from being named Jack, to Archery Club, and on the the lady next door's cats. I found this mildly entertaining for he also tells it all in a mildly humorous light. That I don't mind however it is an abused writing style. So far I'd give the book a 5 out of 10. Its not boring, but I wouldn't read it unless I had to.