SOURCE: Danziger, Jeff. “Revisiting One Boy's Days of Rage and Humor.” Christian Science Monitor (16 February 1989): 13.

In the following review, Danziger praises Wolff for effectively blending adolescent rage with understated wit in This Boy's Life.

After reading This Boy's Life, you'll probably want to read everything else Tobias Wolff has written. Few authors have reported their early years, wasted, halcyon, or otherwise, with the same suspense, longing, loathing, and glorious humor. The writing is clear and merciless, and the chapters are as fluid and perfect as anything I've read in years.

Growing up in the 1950s, Wolff goes with his mother to the Pacific Northwest. First she tries to make out on her own; later in a calamitous marriage with an erratically despotic character who makes young Wolff's life something to escape. He enters into wild friendships, petty crime, and general hebephrenia on a hilarious scale. Each experience is...