Tobias Wolff's old school: Truth, lies, fiction, and the American boarding school

Abstract

This essay traces the connections between Tobias Wolff's life writing, his fiction, and the life writing of Wolff's brother, Geoffrey Wolff. It examines the links within Wolff's writing and life and between the characteristics of the American boys' prep school environment and a tendency to lie about the self, and it argues that Wolff conceives of fiction paradoxically as both refuge from and extension of those instincts of deceitful self-projection. © 2014 Copyright Taylor & Francis.