SOURCE: Hannah, James. “Part 1: The Short Fiction: In the Garden of the North American Martyrs.” In Tobias Wolff: A Study of the Short Fiction, pp. 3-44. Boston, Mass.: Twayne, 1996.

In the following essay, Hannah studies the twelve stories included in In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, focusing on how each reflects themes about changing one's life for the better.

Introduction

It seems to me that the final symptom of despair is silence, and that storytelling is one of the sustaining arts; it's one of the affirming arts. It's one of the most intimate things that people do together. … A writer may have a certain pessimism in his outlook, but the very act of being a writer seems to me to be an optimistic act.

Tobias Wolff, from an interview with Jean W. Ross

In 1981, such an “optimistic act” as Tobias Wolff describes above took place with...