Our Story Begins

Tobias Wolff's first two books, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs and Back in the World, proved how the short story can "provoke our amazed appreciation" (New York Times Book Review). In the years since, he's written a third collection, The Night in Question, as well as several other astounding works. Now he returns with fresh revelations-about biding one's time, experiencing first love, or burying one's mother-that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary: a retired marine enrolled in college while her son trains for Iraq, a lawyer taking a difficult deposition, an American in Rome indulging the Gypsy who's picked his pocket. In this potent new collection, as with his earlier work, Wolff displays his mastery over a quarter century, once again proving himself a writer of the highest order: part storyteller, part philosopher, someone deeply engaged in asking hard questions that take a lifetime to resolve.