Author Guide · Short Stories and Memoir
Books Written by
Tobias Wolff got into The Hill School, a boarding school in Pennsylvania, with recommendation letters he had forged himself, and was expelled in 1964. He joined the US Army, trained for the Special Forces, learned Vietnamese and spent the Tet Offensive as an adviser to South Vietnamese troops near My Tho. After the army he took a first in English at Oxford and a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, and he became one of the most admired American short story writers of his generation. He then wrote those early years down twice: This Boy’s Life (1989), filmed in 1993 with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, and In Pharaoh’s Army (1994). This guide covers his eight key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 1981–2008 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Tobias Wolff (born 1945) has published four story collections, a novella, a novel and two memoirs as his key books. The best known are This Boy’s Life (1989), The Barracks Thief (1984), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award, In Pharaoh’s Army (1994) and Old School (2003). Start with This Boy’s Life; the stories, collected in Our Story Begins (2008), are where to go next.
Where to Start with Tobias Wolff
If you want his defining book
→ This Boy’s Life (1989) — the 1950s boyhood memoir behind the 1993 film.
If you want the short stories
→ Our Story Begins (2008) — new and selected stories in one volume.
If you want a novel
→ Old School (2003) — a scholarship boy, a writing prize and three famous visitors.
If you want Vietnam
→ In Pharaoh’s Army (1994) — his memoir of the war and the years around it.
8 Tobias Wolff Books, in Order
In the Garden of the North American Martyrs
Twelve stories, his first collection, published by Ecco Press in New York and in Britain in 1982 under the title of one of them, Hunters in the Snow. The characters include a teenage boy who tells morbid lies about his home life, a timid professor and an elderly couple on a golden-anniversary cruise. Some of the stories began as his thesis at Stanford.
The Barracks Thief
Three new paratroopers at Fort Bragg, Philip, Lewis and Hubbard, are sent to guard an ammunition dump during a forest fire and turn away the civilians who tell them to leave. Back in the barracks, money starts disappearing and suspicion falls on the newcomers. The novella won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1985.
Back in the World
The title is the phrase soldiers in Vietnam used for civilian life at home. The stories follow people who feel out of place in it, among them returned veterans, who look for relief in drugs, casual sex and the stories they invent about themselves.
This Boy’s Life
After his parents split up, Wolff and his mother drive west, chasing a uranium fortune in Utah, and settle in Washington State, where she marries Dwight, a violent and bullying stepfather. The boy lies, forges cheques, steals cars and finally forges his way into a boarding school. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was filmed in 1993 by Michael Caton-Jones with Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin.
In Pharaoh’s Army
The sequel to This Boy’s Life in all but name: Wolff’s year as a US Army officer attached to South Vietnamese troops near My Tho, including the Tet Offensive, told in short, self-contained chapters alongside scenes from before and after the war, among them his ex-convict father. It was a finalist for the 1994 National Book Award for nonfiction.
The Night in Question
Fourteen stories, including “Bullet in the Brain”, first published in The New Yorker in 1995, in which a vicious book critic caught in a bank robbery cannot stop mocking the robber, and “The Chain”, where a dog attack sets off a revenge that goes wrong. “Bullet in the Brain” was made into a short film in 2001.
Old School
His only full-length novel since his first. A scholarship boy at an elite East Coast prep school in 1960, who hides that he is part Jewish, wants above all to be a writer. Each visiting author, Robert Frost, Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway, gives a private audience to the winner of a student writing contest, and to meet Hemingway he submits a story written by someone else. It was a finalist for the 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award.
Our Story Begins
Thirty-one stories: 21 chosen from his three earlier collections and ten new ones, among them “Deep Kiss” and “Awaiting Orders”. Kirkus Reviews compared him to Richard Yates, Raymond Carver and Robert Stone. It won The Story Prize.
In What Order to Read Tobias Wolff
Only the two memoirs connect: This Boy’s Life covers his boyhood up to boarding school, and In Pharaoh’s Army moves on to the army and Vietnam, so read them in that order. Old School is fiction, but it returns to a boarding school very like the one he was expelled from, and it reads well after the first memoir.
The story collections stand on their own. If you want them all, Our Story Begins gathers the best of the first three with ten new stories; read the original books if you want each collection as he arranged it.
A reading path
1. This Boy’s Life (1989)
2. In Pharaoh’s Army (1994)
3. Old School (2003)
4. Our Story Begins (2008)
5. The Barracks Thief (1984)
Everything Else Tobias Wolff Published
Beyond the 8 key books: 5 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
First novel
1
1 book · 1975
- 1975Ugly Rumourshis first novel, published in London by Allen & Unwin
Anthologies he edited or introduced
4
4 books · 1983–1994
- 1983Matters of Life and Deathnew American stories, edited by Wolff
- 1988A Doctor’s Visitshort stories by Anton Chekhov, edited by Wolff
- 1994The Best American Short Stories 1994guest editor
- 1994The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Storiesedited and introduced by Wolff
The years · 1945–2015
Quick facts about Tobias Wolff
- Known for
- Tobias Wolff is known for his short stories and for This Boy’s Life, the memoir of a lying, self-inventing boyhood that became a 1993 film.
- 1945
- Born in Birmingham, Alabama
- 1968
- Vietnam: adviser during the Tet Offensive
- 1985
- PEN/Faulkner Award for The Barracks Thief
- 1989
- This Boy’s Life
- 2003
- Old School
- 2015
- National Medal of Arts
- Born
- 19 June 1945, Birmingham, Alabama
- Army
- US Army 1964–1968; Special Forces training and an adviser in Vietnam
- Education
- Hertford College, Oxford (first in English, 1972); Stanford (Stegner Fellow, MA)
- Taught
- Syracuse University, 1980–1997, alongside Raymond Carver; Stanford from 1997
- Family
- Brother of the writer Geoffrey Wolff, author of The Duke of Deception about their father
- Honours
- PEN/Faulkner Award (1985), PEN/Malamud Award (2006), National Medal of Arts (2015)
The red mark is 1989: This Boy’s Life, the memoir of his boyhood that made his name beyond the short story.
How Tobias Wolff Writes: Lies, Self-Invention and the Short Form
Wolff’s recurring subject is people who make themselves up. In This Boy’s Life the boy forges cheques and letters of recommendation; the veterans of Back in the World live on stories they tell about themselves; the narrator of Old School hands in another writer’s story as his own. He tells these lies from close up, without judging, and lets the cost show later.
He works mostly in the short story, in plain, exact prose and scenes that turn on one decision or one sentence: in “Bullet in the Brain” a critic’s sarcasm gets him shot. Critics have put him with Raymond Carver, Richard Yates and Robert Stone, and he taught with Carver at Syracuse, but he has rejected the labels “dirty realism” and short-story “renaissance” that were applied to them.
His memoirs use the same tools as his fiction. In Pharaoh’s Army is told in short chapters, many of them complete scenes, and both memoirs keep the adult narrator’s comments brief, as in “Because I did not know who I was, any image of myself, no matter how grotesque, had power over me.” In a 2004 Paris Review interview he said he works every day, in a basement study at the Stanford library, away from the distractions of home.
Frequently asked questions about Tobias Wolff’s books
How many books has Tobias Wolff written?
Nine books of his own: the eight key books on this page, from In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981) to Our Story Begins (2008), plus his first novel, Ugly Rumours (1975). He has also edited several anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories 1994.
What are Tobias Wolff’s books in order?
In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981), The Barracks Thief (1984), Back in the World (1985), This Boy’s Life (1989), In Pharaoh’s Army (1994), The Night in Question (1996), Old School (2003) and Our Story Begins (2008).
Where should I start with Tobias Wolff?
This Boy’s Life (1989), his memoir of growing up in the 1950s with his mother and a violent stepfather. If you prefer fiction, start with Our Story Begins, which collects 31 of his stories.
What is Tobias Wolff’s most famous book?
This Boy’s Life. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and was filmed in 1993 with Leonardo DiCaprio as the young Wolff and Robert De Niro as his stepfather, Dwight. His best-known story is “Bullet in the Brain” (1995).
Is This Boy’s Life a true story?
It is a memoir of Wolff’s own boyhood: his parents’ separation, the move west with his mother, life with his stepfather in Washington State, and the forged letters that got him into The Hill School. The school expelled him in 1964, then gave him a diploma in 1990 as a member of the class of 1964.
Which Tobias Wolff books have been adapted?
This Boy’s Life was filmed in 1993 by Michael Caton-Jones, with DiCaprio, De Niro and Ellen Barkin. “Bullet in the Brain”, from The Night in Question, became a short film in 2001 starring Tom Noonan.
Did Tobias Wolff fight in Vietnam?
He served in the US Army from 1964 to 1968, trained for the Special Forces, learned Vietnamese and was an adviser with South Vietnamese troops near My Tho during the Tet Offensive. He wrote about it in In Pharaoh’s Army (1994), a National Book Award finalist.
Are Tobias Wolff and Geoffrey Wolff brothers?
Yes. Geoffrey is the elder brother; after their parents separated he stayed with their father, the subject of his memoir The Duke of Deception (1979), while Tobias went with their mother, the story of This Boy’s Life.
What awards has Tobias Wolff won?
The PEN/Faulkner Award for The Barracks Thief (1985), the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for This Boy’s Life, The Story Prize for Our Story Begins, three O. Henry Awards, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the PEN/Malamud Award (2006) and the National Medal of Arts (2015).
Is Tobias Wolff still alive?
Yes. He was born on 19 June 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama, and lives in California; he is an emeritus professor of English at Stanford, where he has taught since 1997.
Footnotes
- Tobias Wolff — Wikipedia
- Tobias Wolff — Encyclopedia of Alabama
- The Art of Fiction No. 183: Tobias Wolff — The Paris Review
- In Pharaoh’s Army — Wikipedia
- Old School — NEA Big Read
- The Night in Question — Kirkus Reviews
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Talking about your work hardens it prematurely, and weakens the charge.”
— Tobias Wolff, The Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 183 (2004)
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