Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Wolff, Tobias - Peter J. Bailey (essay date summer 1991)

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

Peter J. Bailey (essay date summer 1991)

SOURCE: Bailey, Peter J. “‘Why Not Tell the Truth?’: The Autobiographies of Three Fiction Writers.” Critique 32, no. 4 (summer 1991): 219-21.

[In the following excerpt, Bailey interprets This Boy's Life as a “meditation upon selfhood,” praising the style and narrative of the memoir.]

Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life: A Memoir is not a literary autobiography in the same sense that [John Updike's Self-Consciousness or Philip Roth's The Facts] are, largely because it is limited to Wolff's childhood and nowhere explicitly refers to his having become a fiction writer as an adult. Nonetheless, just as the Updike and Roth autobiographies arrive at their own definitions of the relationship between an author's life and his fiction and enact the conclusions drawn about that relationship, Wolff's book similarly represents an attempt to re-examine the prevailing...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Valentine Cunningham (review date 14 March 1975)
   2. Bruce Allen (review date spring 1982)
   3. Richard Orodenker and Welch D. Everman (review date June 1982)
   4. Dean Flower (review date summer 1982)
   5. Bruce Allen (review date 7 June 1985)
   6. Thomas DePietro (review date autumn 1986)
   7. Linda Taylor (review date 6-12 November 1987)
   8. Richard Eder (review date 8 January 1989)
   9. Jeff Danziger (review date 16 February 1989)
   10. Geoff Dyer (review date 28 April 1989)
   11. John Clute (review date 12-18 May 1989)
   12. John Rechy (review date 5 November 1989)
   13. Peter J. Bailey (essay date summer 1991)
   14. John F. Desmond (essay date 14 May 1994)
   15. Richard Eder (review date 16 October 1994)
   16. Tobias Wolff and Nicholas A. Basbanes (interview date 24 October 1994)
   17. James Hannah (essay date 21 November 1994)
   18. Amanda Hopkinson (review date 9 December 1994)
   19. Michael Wood (review date 23 December 1994)
   20. Michael O. Garvey (review date 19 May 1995)
   21. Pat C. Hoy II (review date summer 1995)
   22. Jay Rogoff (review date summer 1996)
   23. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   24. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   25. Erin McGraw (review date summer 1997)
   26. Tobias Wolff and Elizabeth Glass (interview date July 1997)
   27. Daniel D. Challener (essay date 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright