Old School
- ISBN-10
- 0747574650
- ISBN-13
- 9780747574651
- Series
- Old School
- Category
- Authors
- Pages
- 195
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2005
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Paperbacks
- Author
- Tobias Wolff
Description
It's 1960, in America, at a prestigious boys' public school, a place of privilege that places great emphasis on its democratic ideals. A teenage boy in his final year, on a scholarship, has learned to fit in with his adoptive tribe while concealing as much as possible about himself and his background. Class is ever present, but the only acknowledged snobbery is a literary snobbery. These boys' heroes are writers - Fitzgerald, Cummings, Kerouac. They want to be writers themselves, and the school has a tradition whereby once a term big names from the literary world are invited to visit. A contest takes place with the boys admitting a piece of writing and the winner having a private audience with the visitor. When it is announced that Hemingway will be the next to come to the school, competition among the boys is intense, and the morals the school and the boys hold dear - honour, loyalty and friendship - are tested. No one writes more astutely than Wolff about the process by which character is formed, and here he illuminates the irresistible strength, even the violence, of the self-creative urge. This is a novel that, in its power and its beauty, in its precision and its humanity, is at once contemporary and timeless.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2014-12-31
- 397 pages
- Ebook
- Freelance Academy Press
Similar books
-
Children's Literature Review
By Alan HedbladAt home , as Corky prepares to take a bath , one of her friends attempts to attack her . ... Young teens who like horror series books such as The Power series by Jesse Harris or Caroline Cooney's Trilogy will find this story creates the ...
-
Players
By Karen SwanHarry Hunter is the new golden boy of the literary world.
-
Concise Major 21st-Century Writers: A Selection of Sketches from Contemporary Authors
By Tracey L. MatthewsThe Emerald City of Las Vegas similarly examines the mythology of modern America in casinos and through excerpts from L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz . A Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that the book represents Wakoski's “ inner ...
-
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Film Tie-In
By Annie Barrows, Mary-Ann ShafferA celebration of literature, love, and the power of the human spirit, this warm, funny, tender, and thoroughly entertaining novel is the story of an English author living in the shadow of World War II and the writing project that will ...
-
Surrealism and the Art of Crime
By Jonathan Paul Eburne23 See David Bate , Photography and Surrealism : Sexuality , Colonialism and Social Dissent ( London : I. B. Tauris , 2004 ) , 46-53 . 24 Aragon , “ Il m'est impossible , ” 136 . 25 Le Libertaire , 26 January 1923 , I. 46 Ibid .
-
The Senator and the Sin Eater
By William J. BuchananThe Senator and the Sin Eater, his last book before his death, provides a perfect example of this. . . . [It] is much more than a murder mystery. It is an examination of what sometimes goes wrong in a small, friendly town.
-
Jack London's Martin Eden
By Jack LondonLondon's semi-autobiographical novel Martin Eden is a book that is meant to be read and reread, studied intently, discussed at length, and appreciated on many levels.
-
Secret Surrender
By Laura MartinSecret Surrender
-
The Writer's Desk: Jill Krementz 2006 Calendar
By Susan Sontag, Sonia Sanchez, Saul BellowThe Writer's Desk: Jill Krementz 2006 Calendar
-
Good Wives
By Louisa May Alcott''As they sat together in the twilight, talking over their small plans, the future always grew so beautiful and bright' Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy have grown up together in Orchard House with their friend Laurie next door, and now it's time for ...