SOURCE: Challener, Daniel D. “Desperate to Be the All-American Boy: This Boy's Life.” In Stories of Resilience in Childhood: The Narratives of Maya Angelou, Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Rodriguez, John Edgar Wideman, and Tobias Wolff, pp. 53-79. New York: Garland, 1997.

In the following essay, Challener explores how This Boy's Life chronicles a young man's quest to fulfill the American ideal of masculinity and notes that, despite cultural pressures and personal setbacks, the memoir's protagonist proves remarkably resilient.

Late in This Boy's Life, fifteen year old Tobias Wolff stands in front of a full length mirror in one of Seattle's most exclusive men's clothing stores. He has just been admitted to an elite all-male boarding school and has been brought to the clothing store by a rich alumnus of that school who wants to buy for Toby all the “right clothing.” The rich alumnus does not know that Toby...