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Tobias Wolff

Back in the World: Stories Paperback – October 1, 1996

by Tobias Wolff (Author)

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To American soldiers in Vietnam, "back in the world" meant America and safety. To Tobias Wolff's characters, Back in the World is where lives that have veered out of control just might become normal again. Unfortunately, the men and women in these gripping, pungent, and wonderfully skewed stories have only the vaguest notion of what normal is. A gentle priest finds himself in a Vegas hotel with a hysterical, sun-burned stranger. A show-biz hopeful undergoes a dubious audition in a hearse speeding across the California desert. An aging soldier is distracted from a night of philandering by a gun-toting neighbor and a suicidal enlisted man. As he moves among these unfortunates, Wolff observes the disparity between their realities and their dreams, in ten stories of exhilarating lucidity and grace.

Stories included are: "The Missing Person," "Say Yes," "The Poor Are Always With Us," "Sister," "Soldier's Joy," "Desert Breakdown," "Our Story Begins," "Leviathan," and "The Rich Brother."

"Terrific...The magic of his fiction cannot be explained. It is the ancient art of the master storyteller."--Tim O'Brien

Print length

224 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

October 1, 1996
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0679767967
ISBN-13

978-0679767961
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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

LJ's reviewer hailed Wolff's collection of short stories as "a brilliant examination of life for those who can stand its grimness" (LJ 10/15/85).
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover

To American soldiers in Vietnam, "back in the world" meant America and safety. To Tobias Wolff's characters, Back in the World is where lives that have veered out of control just might become normal again. Unfortunately, the men and women in these gripping, pungent, and wonderfully skewed stories have only the vaguest notion of what normal is. A gentle priest finds himself in a Vegas hotel with a hysterical, sun-burned stranger. A show-biz hopeful undergoes a dubious audition in a hearse speeding across the California desert. An aging soldier is distracted from a night of philandering by a gun-toting neighbor and a suicidal enlisted man. As he moves among these unfortunates, Wolff observes the disparity between their realities and their dreams, in ten stories of exhilarating lucidity and grace.
Stories included are: "The Missing Person," "Say Yes," "The Poor Are Always With Us," "Sister," "Soldier's Joy," "Desert Breakdown," "Our Story Begins," "Leviathan," and "The Rich Brother."
"Terrific...The magic of his fiction cannot be explained. It is the ancient art of the master storyteller."--Tim O'Brien

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reissue edition (October 1, 1996)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679767967
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679767961
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #512,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7,435 in Short Stories Anthologies
- #7,447 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
- #10,327 in Short Stories (Books)

Customer Reviews:
22 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		61%
4 star		26%
3 star		4%
2 star		4%
1 star		4%

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Ron Johnson

You'll feel Guilty of Voyerism

Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2015

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Tobias Wolff is the master of the short story and reading these stories makes you feel like you're looking through a keyhole into small dramatic moments of ordinary life. After reading these stories, you'll swear that you know these characters as people. He writes beautifully, but the language is so concealed in the story, that you're not aware of the words. If you haven't read short stories, give this a chance to see if you might get hooked.

3 people found this helpful

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Danny

Good buy

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2021

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Arrived in good condition as advertised. Enjoyable read.

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MSR

Tobias Wolff is a fine story teller

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

Tobias Wolff is a fine story teller. The stories in this collection have Raymond Carver undertones with simplicity of everyday life and conversation. The stories don't actually end but leave the reader in the moment. Excellent.

One person found this helpful

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Tim Fiechter

Tobias Wolff is one of my favorites

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2013

Verified Purchase

An expert at making the reader feel what is written. In a very select group that includes writers like Ron Carlson.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Portraits of People Who Live Too Much in Their Heads

Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2004

These are great stories, complex psychological studies, all woven into page-turning narratives by a writer who doesn't write to show off his linguistic skills (of which he has many), but to get the reader completely absorbed by the stories without being distracted by verbosity and other annoyances writers too often use to gain attraction for themselves. Wolff is too profound a writer to rely on gimmicks of any kind. Here are some highlights of the collection:

"The Rich Brother": Two brothers, one rich and arrogant, the other a poor drifter, both blame each other for their problems when in fact both are blind to their own pride and their own neediness which makes them need to rival against the other as a distraction from their empty lives.

"Desert Breakdown, 1968": A spoiled brat, now married to a beautiful pregnant woman, has fantasies of leaving his wife to be a single hedonist. He also loathes his parents who have spoiled and enabled him all his life. His delusions catch up with him in a way that I'll leave for the reader to discover in this excellent story.

"The Missing Person": A spiritual cousin to the drifting brother in "The Rich Brother," Leo is a waif afraid of women who sublimates his fears by joining the priesthood where, in an ironic twist, he meets a Trickster and becomes a corrupt hustler upon which, through too many twists of events to chronicle here, he finds his real self.

"Say Yes": A naive young house wife realizes that her husband is a racist and that racism can't be compartmentalized. His racist views contaminate all other aspects of his personality and he must therefore re-invent himself or suffer his wife's contempt and perhaps worse.

These stories are mostly gems, wrought with irony, tales of folly, people's misguided attempts at redemption, predatory tricksters wreaking havoc on the lives of others. His best stories are more richly packed with themes and ideas than most novels.

21 people found this helpful

Helpful

Stacy Helton

Aren’t short stories amazing?

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2016

Aren’t short stories amazing? As where a novel often times gives the reader time to lounge in another world, with different people and strange, yet sometimes familiar situations, a collection of short stories lets you peer in many windows. I think at some point most of us, at least the more curious of us, have sat on the Subway, or at Subway, and seen the various people and wonder what their story is. A collection of short stories allows you to act out that fantasy. That being said, Tobias Wolff’s 1985 collection of stories, BACK IN THE WORLD, gives glimpses of many characters and situations that play out in the Pacific Northwest. The best three, THE POOR ARE ALWAYS WITH US, DESERT BREAKDOWN 1968 and THE RICH BROTHER all involve cars to some degree, and the tentative bond that we have with each other. There are seven other, equally enjoyable stories, but it’s these three where Wolff shines. Wolff’s prose is like that of a Southern writer without the collection of grotesques, and without the Waspish sensibilities and Jewish insecurities of the Yates-Updike-Roth style. While not western, Wolff has given his own take on a unique American landscape, one populated with fog and ennui.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Interesting stories cover a wide range of human experiences

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2004

In this short story collection, author Tobias Wolff utilizes his excellent narrative style to describe a wide range of people in a variety of different experiences. For example, we see a husband and wife having a disagreement which turns ugly, a group of four friends each reflecting back on their finest hour, and the tension between two brothers of opposing circumstances. Many of the stories have negative undertones, and themes of infidelity, drug use, and crime are rampant.

I found these stories to be interesting and engaging, which I attribute largely to Wolff's skill in creating memorable characters. Ultimately, however, I became frustrated with the incompleteness of each tale, as I was left wanting more. Wolff tends to hint at certain plot twists--such as the possibility of an affair or sexual perversion--without ever offering any confirmation. If you enjoy stories which rely on the imagination of the reader more than the imagination of the writer, you are likely to find greater appreciation of what this book has to offer.

7 people found this helpful

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Scott William FoleyTop Contributor: Star Wars

Wolff Always Gets It Right

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2006

Are you reading Tobias Wolff yet? Are you? If not, you should be.

With Back in the World, Wolff gives us yet another outstanding compilation of short stories. As always, Wolff's stories are brief and absolutely potent, offering all the complexities and awkwardness of the human condition in a direct and entrancing manner. His stories are so rooted in everyday life that when something unusual takes place it reminds us just how odd life can sometimes be in the middle of all the humdrum. Never does he take us beyond the possibilities of reality, however, and I believe that's why I so remarkably relate to his work.

I unconditionally recommend all of Wolff's writings, and Back in the World is certainly not to be excluded.

~Scott William Foley, author of The Imagination's Provocation: Volume I: A Collection of Short Stories

2 people found this helpful

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