Fiction and Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff

Part Two

Betb B. HIGGINS

Truth is not necessarily pleasant but it is illuminating. According to Tobias

1)
wolff, fiction must tell the truth about "what it means to be human." Mastery

of form and language are necessary but insufficient to produce good fiction･ In the

first part of this essay, Wolff's criterion was

applied to his one major pleCe Of non-

fiction, the memoir of his childhood, This Boy's Life.2)In the additional biographi-

cal information glVen in Part One, his numerollS

awards for his short stories and
his novella Two
were
cited. Part is an introduction to those works. This article is

a
portion of the first section which is a
consideration of the short stories. It exam-

ines those stories focus on the relations between men

and women, the fam-
which
ily, academia, the efforts of single people to glVe meanlng tO their life･
and

Ⅰ. The Short Stories

The first collection Wolff's In the Garden the North

of short stories, of
American Martyrs,3) contains twelve stories and the second, Bach in the World,4) con-

tains ten. Instead of considering the collections separately, this essay looks at the

twenty-two as a
and groups them according to their themes. Four of
stories whole
them concern
couples and give a bleak view of the relations between men
and
women. In "Maiden Voyage''5) a Howard and Nora, take a
ship's cruise to
couple,

celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. The first evenlng they meet Ron and
Stella, a young couple on their honeymoon. Stella reminds Howard of an old flame

of his. In the middle of the night, he and Ron happen to discover that Stella is stay-

1ng another man, the ship's social director･ A short while later, Howard
With
meets Stella and they talk about the meaning of life. She is unconvinced by his prot-

estations that he has a

good marrlage. The emptlneSS Of Howard's marrlage be-
to
clear the followlng He Nora tell
are
comes
night at a costume party. and asked
the secret of a
successful marrlage. She tries to put a
good face on things by glV-

1ng some
advice and is applauded, but Howard has nothing to say･ He simply tells
102 Beth B, HigglnS

everyone to pass the time and it goes fast. This description of fifty wasted years

is greeted with silence. The story ends as he and Nora dance to "The Anniversary
Waltz" and he tries to avoid seeing Stella grinning at him. He is afraid of passion

and her pursuit of it, but Stella's own days-old marriage has been cor-
already
rupted by her egotistic oplnion that thinking of the feelings of others is :

"

they make cages out of." (G, p.97)

…what

A mood of falsity is imparted in numerous details. Ron works in his family's Jew-
The features diamonds. Stella has tiara made
elry store. store synthetic a
of them
which she wears in her platinum-bleached hair. Her fingernails are black.
painted
At the costume Howard is kind
party a
of fake swashbuckler. He comes as a pト

rate:

Actually the costume was that of an

eighteenth century squire‥‥ (G, p. 97)

He has a decidedly llnrOmantic view of Nora :

she looked more than ever like Harry Truman, for whom Howard had not

voted. (G, 90)

But at the party she comes got up as Venus and wears

plastic leaves in her hair

which press against his forehead when they dance. This all sounds grotesque but

the four characters in "Maiden Voyage" do have their The

compensating sides.
young busband's insistence on the goodness of his wife's character is pathetic, yet,
even in his palm at discoverlng her unfaitbfulness, he thinks beyond himself is re-
and
lieved to find that she is safely on the ship and hasn't fallen overboard. The old
man's
wife's pretensions that they have a
romantic marrlage have no basis, but

she is generally able to remain positive when he is crotchety and to forglVe him for

not showlng any genuine affection for her. The old man himself is ilトnatured and

afraid of love, but he is aware

of his wife's fundamental decency and insists on the
importance of consideration for others. The young is cruel to her husband yet
wife
elicits our
understanding when she tries to make the old man come in touch with
his true feelings. The first evening at dinner, the social director had called the two

couples:

``

‥.

the Alpha and Omega of human love." (G, p. 92)

 Fiction and Truth : The Works of Tobias Wolff 103

The synthetic diamond salesman with his unfaithful platinum-blonde wife and the

crotchety swashbuckler with his Harry Truman Venus form an

uninviting view of

married love.

In two of the other three stories, the same double-couple technique is llSed. In

"Next Door",6) the sterility of a

couple's marrlage is contrasted with the erotic vio-

lence of the next-door neighbors'marrlage. There is minimal action. The wife

I

wakes her husband because she is disturbed by the neighbors quarreling. They try

to block the yelling by watching The

television. rejectsher hus-
a on
out movie wife
band's sexual advance and falls asleep. He gets up and takes care
of the house

plants, decides to turn off the movie, and imaglneS a

script in which men
and
women are
covered with white flowers so they are indistingnishable. The primary

couple seem kind and nurturing, particularly the husband who has planted flowers,

for his sick wife, and carefully tries not to disturb her when she goes back to
cared

sleep. But their marrlage is characterized by separate beds with a television be-

tween them. They have a pet cat bllt Seemingly no They do not
children. complain′
to their neighbor even
when he defecates on their flowers. The wife was once horri-
I

fュed to see the neighbors passion in their kitchen after the man had violently
beaten his dog. The woman is a horrible mother. Yet this cruel, violent couple do

have the energy of life. They have produced a

child and are
passionate with each

other. They reflect what is lacking ln the prlmary COuple who are too timid to de-

fend their own home and are so

afraid of the stuff of life that the husband fanta-

sizes a
world in which it's impossible to determine who is a man
and who is a

WOman.

Technically, "Next Door" differs from Wolff's style. It is told in the

usual
first person and mostly in the present tense instead of Wolff's more customary

third person narration in the past tense. It is the only story out of twenty-two in

which none
of the characters has a name. The use
of the present tense avoids the

problem of the narrator's having bad time for reflection and developlng awareness

to
of his sterile marrlage. The of the first person, directly
course, allows us
use of

experience his marrlage aS he does and the lack of names intensifies the focus on

the husband-wife relationship, that is, marrlage.

"Leviathan"7) is the final story with two couples. It's set in San Francisco

where Ted has invited some friends, Mitch and Bliss, to an

all-night cocaine party

to celebrate his wife Helen's thirtieth birthday. The followlng mOrnlng Helen in-

sists each of them tell the best thing they have ever done in their life. As she is telレ
1ng the others how she once
controlled her own fear to help a boy who had Down's

syndrome, Ted falls asleep. She slaps her husband across the face ; her friends try

to her, but defends her Instead tO they

comfort she marrlage. of golng Work,
104 Betb B. HigglnS

decide to spend the day her, their noses The

with stuffing with cocaine. narcissism
of this foursome and vacuity the
of relationships their pervade the celebration.
They deny their irresponsibility and flee from depression with cocaine. It is a bleak

and devastating view of contemporary marrlage.

"Leviathan" is written mostly in dialogue is of Wolff's
so a
and good example
ear for the way people speak. During the party Bliss had started to cry. As Mitcb

smoked marlJuana, Helen asked him what was the matter.

"What's the story on Bliss?" she asked. "All bummed out over World War
Two? Ted should have known that movie would set her off."
Mitch picked a
sliver of weed from his lower lip. "Her ex is threatening
to move back to Boston. Which means
she won't get to see her kids except dur-
ing the summer,
and that's only if we can put together the scratch to fly

them here and back. It's tough. Really tough."

"I guess,'' Helen "Still, Bliss have thought that
said‥… should about
when she took a
walk on them, right?" (β,p. 183)

Mitch's description of Bliss's problems and Helen's flippant comments typify a

drugged-out California man

and woman discusslng the problems of divorced par-

ents･ Helen's flippant attitude is maintained even

when she describes the best thing

she has ever done. She says that when she was in high school:

"I was into a serious good-works routine back then." (B, p. 190)

When she talks abollt helping the boy with Down's syndrome, Tom, she continues:

``Like l said, I started out taking care

of Tom as a kind of beatitude num-

ber,
….''(β, p.190)

Ted is proud of his bad character and says :

"All you need is a few pointers, and old Ted is just the man to glVe them to

you･ Because where horrendous is concerned I'm the expert. You might say

that I'm the king of horrendous." (β,p. 188)

And then:

"Put on
your crash helmets," Ted went on. "You are to bear my
about ab-
solute bottom-line confession. The Worst Story Ever Told." (β,p. 188)
 Fiction and Truth : The Works of Tobias Wolff 105

The a
words of classic, mindless, male egotist.
At the end of the story when they decide to take more
cocaine, the dialogue is

again apt.

"My energy level isn't too high," Bliss said.

Mitch nodded. "Mine's pretty low, too."

``Then we'll just have to bring it up," Helen said. (B, pp. 194-195)

Helen went to get more

cocaine.

"I don't believe this," Bliss said. "Where did you get it?" Helen

shrugged.
"That's lot
a
of toot,''Mitch said.
"We'lljust have to do ollr best," Helen said. "We've got all day." (β,

p.195)

We seem to be eavesdropplng On a drug party.

The last features
of these stories Just One
COuple and appears to be about a

wife's attempts to confirm her hllSband's love for her. However, after an argu-

ment the "husband" proposes marriage and so we learn that, despite the "hus-

band's" insistence on how thoughtful he is, "Say Yes"8) is about a fake marrlage.

The story ends as the man lies in bed in the dark waiting for the woman to come

to him. The gulf between them is emphasized by his excitement being compared to

the feeling of discoverlng a Stranger is in the house.

Unlike the stories discussed so far, "Face to Face"9) is not about marrlage per

se. It concerns a disastrous attempt of a divorced woman to reconstruct her life

and find some happlneSS. Virglnia's husband bad walked out on her and her son,

Ricky. The neighbors introduce her to Robert who is also divorced. He treats

her Ricky kindly decides to accept his invitation to go away together

and and she
for the weekend. The first evenlng at the hotel he stays behind drinking in the bar.
She is awakened early the next mornlng by his touching her. He forces himself

upon her and then goes back to sleep. But later that mornlng he says
When nothing
about it she also says nothing. That night she is awakened as he tries to force him-

self on her again. She pushes him away and tells him they should go home. On the
drive home she feels sorry for him. She thinks he's always golng tO be alone and
tries to encollrage him to look for someone to share his life with. Although the
woman had been sexually abused, she is still open to love but sees the man as

closed off forever. Her sympathy for a man

who had misused her arouses concern
106 Beth B. HigglIIS

that she will allow the same thing to happen to her agaln With other men. She

may be too to defend her own dignity. If love is glVe

vulnerable rights and and
take, she had better be more
of a taker. Yet unlike many of Wolff's characters,

she is not afraid of intimacy.

Taken together, these five stories are
about the difficult relations between men

and women. The next three concern the tenuousness of the family. The young cou-

ple in "Desert Breakdown, 1968"10) have a son

still in diapers and the wife is preg-

They to Los Angeles the husband hopes to find job

ar占on their
a
nant. way where
in the entertainment industry. When they stop at a gas station in the California

desert, the car won't start up agaln. The husband leaves to hitchhike into town for

a spare part. During this seemlngly simple and short separation, the husband and

wife realize their marrlage is meanlngless. The husband is picked up by a man

and
two women
who are part of a film crew. He is encollraged to join them and sees

the offer as his big break. He rationalizes to himself how his wife, son,
and un-

born baby will be better off without him and how marrlage is blocking the wonder-
ful life he should have. He only asks to be let out of the car (ironicallya hearse)
he the having
when sees man
sexual relations with one
of the women
and the other
woman drivlng lnSanely. In a
ride on the highway with strangers he had decided to

abandon his family and had given up his plan only when the strangers'bebavior
had become too crazy for him to put up with. Back at the gas station, his wife re-

members her hometown in Germany and wishes her hllSband had already returned,
then realizes :

that course he be there, because he had never been there

…

of wouldn't really

and was never

going to be there in any way that mattered. (β,p. 151)

This young family just starting out is held together by extraordinarily flimsy
ll)
bonds. It contrasts with the older family in "Poaching" which unnecessarily falls

apart. The central character is a

cartoonist who is a
well-intentioned father and hus-

band. However, be's unable to accept his wife and son as they are
and constantly

criticizes them. He believes someone is shooting on his land but avoids doing any-

thing about it. Like the couple in "Next Door", be is unable to defend what is his.

When his wife makes gestures of reconciliation, he is unable to reclprOCate. The sus-

turns out to be a beaver. There is a lovely scene

where the family
pected poacher

stands together in the warm sprlng rain watching lt. The scene is interrupted by a

flash forward explaining that his wife's visit had been the last time the family had

ever lived together. Then we are back with the man

who sees the beaver as an

Omen:
 Fiction and Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff 107

...
they had been offered an
olive branch and were not far from home. (G,

p.154)

The lets his chances to his family his fingers. The

slip through
man
regain poetic
feel of the scene the beaver our frustration the senselessness
with sharpens with of
hisloss.

The third of these stories is about a family father has died. Since themati-
whose
12)
cally and technically "The Liar" is complex, it is worth special attention. It be-

glnS With the wonderful line :

My mother read everything except books. (G, p.155)

At the time of the story the youngest child, sixteen-year-old James, is living with
his mother is Sam Francisco. His father has died. His brother and two sisters have aト
from home･ We learn the rest family,
ready moved away about of the particularly
the father, in flashbacks. James is the narrator and is the liar in the title. This

makes us
particularly Interested in the nature of his lying･ Is his lying only, in
fact, storytelling? The problem is compounded by the fact that we are glVen a

first person narration yet we are told what his mother does he isn't there
when and
her thoughts including her private prayers. Peculiarly, it works without the reader
feeling the necessity for the suspension of logic. We tend to accept this informa-
tion･ about the mother as fact, yet on we must
reflection consider another possibil-
ity: this information is simply a fiction the pleCe fiction. The brain
within Of
tires at the thought but is intrigued as
well.
If we look at the plot structure it's surprlSlng tO discover it takes place within
twenty-four hours. Because the flashbacks commentary on it
of and character
seems to cover a
much longer time period. The settings in those twenty-four hours
are
simple-I at home, at church, at the doctor's office, at the bus station, and on a

long-distance bus. However, the story is richly textured because of the boy's continu-
ous
observations of his parents'character, his relations with them, and his own be-
havior.

In the openlng SCene his mother a letter bad taken from her son's
reads she
drawer. He had told a lie about her health, saylng She is seriously ill. Her lack of
self-awareness is immediately evident. It doesn't occur to her that her invasion of
her son's
prlVaCy lS
reprehensible.

"What difference does it make if James has to hide?" was

nothing --that
her thought. (G, p. 155)
108 Beth B. HigglnS

She's a devout Catholic and goes to daily Mass as is her custom. At one of
church
the several funny episodes in the story occurs. She is upset God because her
with
son is still lying despite her large contributions to charities.

She felt cheated and she let her feelings be known. (G, p.156)

Back at home agaln, She burns the letter and calls Dr. Murphy, the family doctor,

who is treating the son. They argue about the doctor's the son's
responsibility and
condition. Angry, she hangs llp On him. Dr. Murphy tllrnS tO James, who is in his of-

fice, and gives him some

counsel guaranteed to infuriate the mother if she knew.

He tells James to keep his lying secret so his mother won't be upset. At this point

there is a long interlude about the father. One episode is about a family trip to

Yosemite when a bear had invaded their campsite. The motber's intrepid and unin-
tentionally humorous character is shown by her remarking "enough's enough,"
twice telling the bear "Beat it," and thereafter throwlng rocks at him. In a later

flashback we learn that only James had sided with the father who had insisted

they return bone. After that, the boy bad grown close to his father because he had

realized:

what we
really had, which was a
shared fear. (G, p.167)

As the father was dying of cancer it was James who had sat with him and read to

him. He was
alone with him on New Year's Day when he died. He felt his father

should be in his bed and got a friend to help carry his dead body upstairs. The

boy's difficulties with his mother are illustrated in this passage. At first she is

happy her husband had died in bed, but she happens to find out the truth and gets an-

gry with James.

… so was Mother when she heard the story, shocked and furious. Why?

Because l had not told her the truth? Or because she bad learned the trlltb,

and could not go on believlng that Father had died in bed? I really don't
know. (G, p.168)

This is agood example of why we tend to take the narrator at his word. He says

he doesn't know if his mother was angry because he had lied or

she had found out

the truth.
When James gets home from Dr. Murphy's office be apologlZeS tO his mother

about the letter. Since he had promised many times in the past to stop lying but
 Fiction and Truth : The Works of Tobias Wolff 109

nothing had ever

changed, the apology naturally has little effect. His mother tries
to glVe him some
advice.

"You're cheating yourself, that's what I'm trying to tell you. When you

get to be my age you won't know anything at all about life. All you'll know

is what you've made up."

I thought about that. It seemed logical. (G, p.168)

Just as they seem to be comlng tO SOme agreement about the effect of his constant
lying, they are interrupted by Dr. Murphy who had dropped by. He stays to dinner
he the mother ask James why he lies but James says he himself doesn't
and and
know. James watches them slng together wants to join in but doesn't becallSe
and
he has a poor voice. After Dr. Murphy leaves, his mother suggests that James go

stay with his brother in Lo§ Angeles for a

while. He agrees and the next day she
sees him There is considerable humor throughout "The Liar" the send-off
off. and
at the bllS Station is a
good example.

Sbe me her kissed me, then held me an extra to

pulled against and second
show that her was not Just like everyone never hav-
embrace sincere, else's,
ing realized that everyone else does the same thing. I boarded the bus and we

waved at each other until it became eⅢbarrasslng. Then Mother began check-
ing through her handbag for something. When she had finished l stood and ad-
j11Stedthe luggage over my seat. I sat and we
smiled at each other, waved

wben the driver gunned the englne, Shrugged when he got up suddenly to

count the passengers, waved agaln When he resumed his seat. As the bus
l looking
pulled out my mother and were at each other with plain relief. (G,

p.173)

On the bus a fat lady with a bag full of chicken sits down next to bin. She pro-

videsanother good example of Wolff's ear for language. She asks James if he is hun-

gry and offers bin some

of her chicken :

"Hey, by God," she booted, ``look at him go to town on that drumstick!''

(G,p.173)

When she asks James about himself :

"How about you?" She slapped my knee. ``Parents own a

chicken ranch?
Ihopeso!" (G,p.174)
110 Beth B. HigglnS

The bus breaks down while they are driving in a

rainstorm. Someone asks the

driver about the delay and the fat lady replies :

"Keep your pants on!".… "Anybody in a hurry to get to L.A. ought to have

his head examined." (G, p.174)

The language is vivid; it sounds like a jollyfat lady.

She is interested in James. He makes up another one

of his stories and tells
her he is an
orphan and had grown up in Tibet his parents had been killed.
where
She asks him to say something in Tibetan. The story ends with people relaxing

with closed eyes as he slngS tO them :

in what was surely an holy tongue. (G, p.175)

.‥

ancient and

The boy seems to be in his element. The boy lies to the last, but it has a
religious
feel.

We are left to interpret his lying as best we can. We know that his lies are mor-

bid. It may be, then, that his father's death was the origin of his lying. But it is

not certain. We know neither how long ago his father died nor if he had lied before

his father's death. He says that his lying made his mother feel :

a failure (G, p.165)

...like

but in fact:

she managed the family well. (G,

p.165)
…

He and his mother appear to be an

unfortunate combination of opposites. She is un-

appreciative of his facility with language. She doesn't understand his puns. She en-

joys Slnglng but thinks he doesn't. She doesn't realize he's embarrassed about his

voice. She seems

stuck; she's unable to change her perceptions of her son
and de-

velop new
understanding. In contrast, the boy can look at her in new ways :

I thought of Mother slnglng "0 Magnum Mysterium," saylng grace, praylng

with easy confidence, and it came to me to me that her imagination was supe-

rior to mine. She could imaglne things as comlng together, not falling

apart. (G, p.172)

 Fiction and Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff iffl

She thinks be doesn't miss his father because he hadn't the funeral. A few
cried at
days later when he had closed his eyes and had refused to open them for hours she
There's
seemed unconvinced of his grief. a feeling that she may not have connected
the two events although it's obvious his behavior was a blocking out, a desperate

bid for attention, or both. In this there is a passage:

section curious

Finally l my eyes. We hugged l wept. Mother did not

opened each other and

really believe my tears, but she was to accept them because l had
willing
staged them for her benefit. (G, p. 162)

Because of the unusual first person narration in which the boy reveals the mother's

thoughts as
well as his own, the "staged them for her benefit" can be puzzling. We
can get into a tangle of questions if we try sorting this out. Are we to take this at
face value? Will the mother accept his faking if it's for her that be does it? Is be
tO faking the tears? Does his imaglne he's faking? Does he sim-
confesslng mother

ply imagine she thinks he's faking? Is he actually faking or

not? Assuming he is fak-

1ng the tears, can't he Is he so lonely, terrified, that he has to

why cry? and sad
hold in his emotions or he'll completely fall apart? Does he have a
repressed person-

ality and can't let go? Does he just dislike crylng? Is there any answer to these ques-

tions? It can be argued that the most sensible reaction to death is irrationality.
Thus an "illoglCal" point of view may be the most powerful way of describing the ef-
fect of death on those left to go on living. Confusion is a
natural reaction to the
death loved The literary technique leads to
of interpretations
a one. a
of muddle

which matches the life situation: bewilderment at the ultimate abandonment

--death.
Tbe boy lies about his mother's being deathly ill. The possibility that her
son's lying may be his expression of his fear that she, too, might abandon him,
never occurs to her. She doesn't think he's a
sneak :

"he's never been furtive.''(G, p. 169)

But she's unlike him and can't understand him :

She was a lighter of candles. My brother and sisters took her in this
after
way. My father was a curser
of the dark. And he loved to cutse the dark.

(G, p.162)

The boy realizes :

112 Beth B. HigglnS

It wasn't only the lies that disturbed Mother; it was their morbidity.

This was the real issue between us, as it had been between her and my fa-

ther. (G, p.162)

It is this child who lives with her. They had been a household of six and were now

only two. She is pllZZled by him, feels she has failed with him, and sends him off
to his brother. Apparently, she is glVlng up On him. If it had been she who bad

died and the father who had lived, perhaps the father would easily have understood
his son's fear. But the mother doesn't have the faculty to do that. The last lie the

son tells is an
escalation. It's not the fact that his father is dead and the lie that

his mother is seriously ill ; he's an

orphan.
The boy lS SOrry his lying upsets his mother, doesn't know himself why he does

it, yet indication he feels ashamed

there's no
of it and no slgn he will stop. Indeed,

he sees that it brings peace to the other passengers on the bus. He is completely aban-
doned now, an
orphan, and can
speak an
unfamiliar tongue, Tibetan. His lying

tongue is an honorable one, a

speaker of truth. "The Liar" is an
exceptionally fine ex-

ample of Wolff uslng the art of fiction to tell truth. We have had a look at the ef-
fect of death on the living. A liar has been our
guide. We've heard his fictions in a

work of fiction with a

particularly fictive literary device: the narrator tells us

things he couldn't know clearly fictions. Our storyteller is the embodiment of fic-
-

tion and truth ; they have become one. This extraordinary lnterWeaVlng Speaks to

us
about life and death and truth and fiction.

In two These
of Wolff's have background
parents a are
stories, role. stories
"Coming Attractions"13) is about two a broken home.
about siblings. children of
They live with their mother in California. Their father had remarried and lives some-

where back East. The sister, Jean, is fifteen. She has a

part-time job in a
movie thea-
ter. One night the boss has an
accident and is late coming to take her home. It's

around midnight and she is alone. She uses the boss's phone to call her father, but

her stepmother answers

and she doesn't get a chance to talk with him. Her father

never
writes'the children although he writes love letters to their mother. Next, she

calls home but finds Tucker, her younger brother, is alone. Their mother is out

with a man. Jean doesn't know his last name. She is disgusted by the adults'love
life. She thinks of calling her favorite teacher but can't find his number. She's dis-

gusted with him, too, because he had made a pass at her girl friend. She has no

adult to turn to. Finally, she makes a

prank call to a stranger. At last the boss
comes. When she gets home she takes care
of her brother:
 Fiction and Truth : The Works of Tobias Wolff 113

Tucker was asleep on the floor in front of the television. Jean opened
the Hide-a-Bed and managed to get him into his pajamas and between the cov-

ers
without waking him up. (β,p. 13)

After a
while, TllCker wakes up and Jean comforts him. He goes back to sleep. She

goes out to the apartment house pool. Tucker had told her that the landlady had

said he could have a bicycle in the deep end of the pool if his family could get it

out. Jean exhausts herself trylng tO retrieve it but manages to get herself back up

and over the edge of the pool. She rests with her arm in the pool hanglng On tO the

bike. She intends to pull the bike out once

she feels better. This adolescent girl
tries to parent her little brother although she has no
good role model and needs some-

help her along in the process her

one to of formlng identity as a woman. Since the

parents are irresponsible, the have to bring themselves up.

children
The two brothers in "The Rich Brother"14) dead･ Pete,
parents of the are the
brother, is forty, a businessman in California, has his
older around successful and
own family. His younger brother, Donald, is a
sometime house palnter, Slngle, and
bas皿OVed from one communlty tO He is incapable taking
religious another. of
care
of himself which means that Pete can't avoid being his brother's keeper. His

parents bad held him responsible for baby-sitting Donald and now he's ashamed to

tell his wife he won't Pete

take care
of him. When receives a
call from Donald,

who is in trouble agaln, he invites bin to come

and live at his house. Pete goes to

pick Donald up and most of the story consists of their interactions as they drive

back home. Donald talks about their childhood and how Pete had beat him up

many times to the point of almost killing him. At first Pete denies it but finally ad-

mits be may have done so a

couple of times. Donald never fought back and appar-

never told anyone. He the In general Donald has a

ently played complete victim.

morally superior air, telling Pete he forglVeS him for his behavior. Pete tries to de-

fend himself from Donald's accusations, but be's not effective. Pete remembers
how their mother had always fussed over Donald. He's still jealous.
They stop to eat and Donald offers a hitchhiker a
ride. Pete gets tired and

sleeps while Donald drives. When he wakes up, he discovers that the hitchhiker is

gone and that Donald had believed the hitchhiker's story about a
gold mine in

Peru. The hitchhiker had swindled Donald out of all the money Pete had just glVen

him. Pete is furious. Then he starts thinking how ironic it would be if Donald, be-
lucky,
cause
of his innocent character, got whereas he himself has no
such possibiト
1ty because he is They Donald Pete tells him
cynlCal. argue. gets out of the car.

it's the end drives He soon he can't leave him there. He

and off. realizes wouldn't
know how to answer his wife when she asks him :
114 Betb B. HigglnS

Where is your brother? I(B, p. 221)

The two brothe一s cannot get free of their childhood relationship. The innocence of
the younger brother, his air of a
victim, his helplessness, tie the older, aggressive
brother to him permanently. The older brother couldn't face his mother and can't

face the world if he refuses to be responsible for his younger brother. He's a life-

time baby-sitter.

In the follow,1ng two Wolff takes a severe "An

StOries･ view of academia･
15)
Episode in the Life of Professor Brooke" is about a smug professor whose pride
in himself as a
stable family man is punctured by a
chance meetlng With a woman

at a
professional conference. He lives in Seattle and is golng tO a
reglOnal meeting

of the Modern Language Association in the town of Bellingbam. He has to drive

there Riley, a
colleag･ue he dislikes, Riley lS a Yeats scholar who is "flashy"
with

and is rumored to have affairs with students. He's married with four children, and
like Professor Brooke, he's a Catholic. Professor Brooke and his wife are
pleased
that:

after sixteen years they were

still in love. (G, p.28)

Professor Brooke is certain of his intellectual and moral judgments. During a

panel discussion at the conference, he points out to a

young professor on thelpanel
how he is mistaken. In fact, Professor Brooke had come to the conference so
only
that:

.‥ he might bring some

sanity to the meeting. (G, p.28)

Later he andtRiley get into an argument about a woman at their university. She

has three children and a

sick husband, but he thinks she's incompetent and had

blocked her appolntment for tenure.

While he's a he meets a volunteer from the Bellingham literary so-

getting snack,

ciety, Ruth. She is a nurse at the local hospital, unmarried, and has lived in that lit-

tle town all her life. He makes a

snide remark about the sandwiches which had

been decorated with quotations from Bartlett's. When he realizes she had done the

decorations, he apologlZeS, That evening in the hotel he meets her by chance and de-

cides to attend a poetry reading with her. Many of his students like the poet,

Francュs X. Dillon. Professor Brooke had recently thumbed through one

of his

books:
 Fiction and Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff 115

intrlgued by a blurb on the back that the poet had been trans-
claiming
…

lated into twenty-three languages, including Hindu (sic). As he turned the

pages Brooke formed the image of a guru in a darkened cell reading these
same dreadful verses by no
other light than that of his own
mystical aura.

(G,p.35)

There follows a deft description of settlng :

The room was large so that the two

and overheated and crowded of
them had to stand in the back. The poet was half an hour late but not one per-

son left, even though the air was

stllffy and smelled bad. (G, p. 35)

and character :

Dillon apology began to He was wearlng a lum-

arrived and without read.
berjack shirt and a loose palr Of khaki pants tied at the waist with a length

of rope. (G, p. 35)

The description of the poetry is hilarious.

All of the poems were

about trees. They seemed to be saying that people had
a lot to learn from trees. Trees were
natural and uninhibited and didn't find
it necessary to build roads and factories all over the place.
The prlnCiple by which the poems were
arranged eluded Brooke until, dur-
ing a pause, Dillon remarked that they would now be moving up into the as-

pen country･ Then Brooke realized that the poenlS Were

grouped according to

elevation. They had begun the ascent at sea level with the coastal redwoods
and they'd been climbing steadily ever
since. (G, pp. 35-36)

Presumably the Northwest had inspired Dillon. The reading ends as Dillon :

- left the room

without a
word to anyone when he was through.
"Isn't he wonderful!" Ruth said, as they stood applauding the empty

podium. (G, p.36)

They have a drink in the bar and run into Riley and the yollng professor agaln.

Brooke escorts Ruth home. When they get inside, she tells him she thinks it's impor-
tant to be honest takes her has no hair. She had lost it
and off wig revealing she
116 Betb B. HigglnS

when she had been ill and had had chemotherapy. He thinks she looks exotic, and

she feels comfortable with him. She tells him that by reading one
of Dillon's po-

ems
she had regained her to live when she was in the hospital. While she re-
will
cites a poem she had written about it, be scarcely listens and thinks :

he bad ever tbougbt or

said could make a woman want to live
…nothing
again. (G, p.41)

He asks her to read Dillon's poem, starts to enjoy it, and spends the night. The fol-
lowlng day, he drives home Riley tells him bad happened the
with who whatever

night before will remain secret. Brooke decides he has to be dishonest with his wife

to avoid burtlng her. He doesn't know that his wife had smelled perfume in his

clothes. He also lgnOreS the love poems be receives from Ruth. His idea of atone-
ment is to sit in the front at church where Riley can see him.

He kneel before Riley all, he thought, kneel before

as we one an-
would must

otber. (G, pp. 42-43)

For him the episode with Ruth is finished. He had thought her literary tastes aw-

ful, the poetry she liked junk. It was her sincerity that had affected him. On her

part, Ruth admired him, thought him kind, and felt accepted by him. Professor

Brooke does to remedy the pain he has the two women. He wraps up
nothing caused
the matter by symbolically submitting to the judgment of his colleague whose judg-
ment is, in any case, irrelevant. He avoids admitting his own heartlessness and
that the solution he has chosen is most convenient for himself.

"In the Garden of the North American Martyrs",16) which lent its title to the

first collection of Wolff's stories, features another professor. At the start of

i.

Mary s career
she had seen :

a brilliant and original man (G, p. 123)

fired because of his ideas. Ever since, she had played it safe. She uses :

… the arguments and often the words of other, approved writers, so that she

would not by chance say something scandalous. Her own thoughts she kept
to herself, ‥‥
(G, p. 123)
 Fiction and Truth : The Works of Tobias Wolff 117

She acts as if she is unaware

of the department's cliques. She plays the good sport

by always being a joke. In tbis皿anner She keeps her job for fif-
ready with silly
teen years until the college goes bankrupt. She leaves the East to take a
position
at a
college in Oregon. She hates it. The college consists of one building and the li-

brary has no books, but the main problem is the damp climate is bad for her
which
lungs and makes her hearlng aid malfunction. In her third year, an invita-
she gets
tion to be interviewed at a famous college in upstate New York where one
of her
old colleaglleS teaches. When she arrives, her friend, Louise, tells her she had forgot-

ten to mention the lecture Mary lS to glVe the next day. Mary doesn't
expected
know what to do. Louise is a
successful historian and offers her an
article she bad

written. Mary had never gone as far as

out-and-out plagiarism, but she decides to acI

°ept the paper. Since she always quotes other people, she thinks it's not all that dif-
ferent. In any case,
she has a low oplnion her own A book had
of writing. she
written started out :

"It is generally believed that…" How dull, she thought. (G, p. 132)

By chance she learns that the college has a

rule that one woman must be inter-

viewed for each faculty position. The interview turns out to be a boa又. The commit-
tee arrives late, Mary's books are so
clean that it's clear they are the
unread, and
department chairman spends the time talking about the climate in Oregon, his

home state Utah, New York. Then be starts discusslng his own No
and retirement.
I

mention is made of Mary s

academic interests. Afterwards, Mary confronts
Louise. Louise starts talking her life. Her husband is angry
about personal about
her love affair, her children are upset, and she is having trouble with her lover.
She had hoped Mary would cheer her llp. Mary decides she absolutely will not use

Louise's paper. The lecture room is full. Besides the professors, many students had
come. She begins lecturing spontaneously on the the lroquois lndians
cruelty of
to inhabit the area. The department tries to stop her. She does-
who used chairman
n't know any more historical facts but tells the some bad
audience what priests
said to the lroquois about being kind to others. Louise shouts at her, but Mary

turns off her hearlng aid so

she can
continue lecturlng ln peace. She knows she has

been used and there is no

possibility of her getting the position. This emboldens her

to express her own

views for the first time in her career. This scathing look at aca-

demia includes several elements: the cliques; the egotism of both the department

chairman, who discusses his personal life during an interview, and the successful,
high-strung female is full of self-pity the hypocrlSy
professor, who ; Of the colleg･e

which goes through the motions of fairness to women; the timidity of the main
118 Beth B. HigglnS

character who wants to keep her job at all costs, is bored by her own
writings, be-

lieves orlglnal ideas lead to failure, is willing to plaglarize to get a

position, and

speaks out only when she has nothing left to lose. Wolff has described a domain of
lower learnlng.
17)
"Sister" is one
of a group of five stories about slngle people and the difficul-

ties they have in their relations with others. In late autumn, one
cold Sunday after-
noon, Marty sees two men in a
park from her apartment window. Sbe's attracted
to tan. Taking her, she goes to the
of them
one some marlJuana
who's very With
the other man is Jack. She had met him at a bar a few weeks
park and recognizes
ago. They had talked about reincarnation. Marty tries to believe in it because she
thinks there must be a better life for her than the one she has. After having drinks

together, he had left her with the bill and stolen her cigarette lighter. He doesn't

seem to remember her. She exercises in front of them and begins talking with
them. Jack says he thinks he knows her, and Marty asks his name. He tells her it's

Bill and he
she lies too, telling him her name is Elizabeth. He decides doesn't know

her tan
after all. He tells her his tan friend's name is Jack. The man is from

Hawaii. Marty says :

"Ⅰ've always wanted to go to Hawaii. Just kick back for about three weeks.
Check out the volcanoes. Do some
ma主 tais." (月,p. 88)

This flip tone is typical of their conversation. She drinks the beer they offer her;

it had been laced with something. She lallghs at their jokes about women. She

thinks how friend the four havs The tan

she could get a
and of them could a party.

man is wearlng a rlng, but that doesn't deter Marty. Suddenly a Frisbee
Wedding
comes by and she chases it into the street. She's almost killed by a
reckless driver

and feels humiliated. She knows the men won't want to be with her now. She goes

back to her apartment building and sits on the steps. She wants someone to com-

fort her but realizes she's always going tO be alone, can't understand
althoughshe
why. She thinks of her brother and his friends enJOylng drinking ln a bar after hunt-
1ng While their dogs sit in the car
waiting for them. This lonely woman feels shut

out of the men's

world and tries to get their affection by actlng like one
of the

guys. She's so desperate that she tries to meet strangers in the park, plays along

with a
situation in which everyone lies about who he is, and is fearful that a man

who had misused her will remember. She is literally self-effacing :

"A lot of people look like me." (B, p.87)

 Fiction and Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff 119

She thinks she mustn't show any vulnerability or

need. Death is just an inconven-

ient embarrassment. She pays careful attention to the body but is unable to ex-

press feelings. Like "Leviathan'', "Sister" is full of flippant in an

genuine speech

atmosphere of drink and drugs.

18)
The main character in ''Passengers" is also emotionally stunted. Glen is a

traveling salesman based in Seattle. He glVeS a

ride to Bonnie, a hitchhiker down

on her luck and lonely. He is relieved when he realizes she is older than he is be-

cause he doesn't have to worry He hasn't because,

about getting Involved. married
as his roommate says :

…
it didn't make sense to take on freight when you were traveling for speed.
(G,p.81)

As he often does with strangers, he lies to Bonnie, telling her he's engaged. She has

a big dog which causes a traffic accident, and they are

almost killed. They are un-

hurt, but they hold on to each other. Both decide to change the way they live, but

Glen is unsure how.

…
though he wasn't sure
just what was wrong with his ways, he meant it.

(G,p.82)

They drive on
and agree there is a bond between them. When they reach the tran-

sients'hotel where her girl friend lives, Bonnie tells him she doesn't want to stay

there get involved in her friend's irregular life-style. Glen wants to help her,
and
but knows his roommate never accept her, leaves her there. His room-
would and
mate, Martin, is also his boss. It is his car Glen is drivlng. Glen dreads telling

him about Bonnie, but has no

choice, because her dog had wet the car's seat cover

and stained it. Martin thinks picking up hitchhikers is :

… dangerous and socially irresponsible, like feeding stray cats. (G, p. 74)

in the He
He believes survival of the fittest. considers business a:

corporate gene pool. You had to keep cleaning out the deadwood and bring-

ing in new blood. (G, pp. 77-78)

He has a despicable theory about the Holocaust.日e thinks :

120 Beth B. HigglnS

…
the Jewish people had done the lsraelis a favor by dying out; if they had

lived they would have weakened the gene pool -‥

(G, p. 77)

As Glen expects, Martin flies into a rage when he hears about Bonnie.

"Why didn't she have her own

car?" he asked. "Because she's used to go-

1ng places free. Some day she's golng tO find out that nothing's free. You

could have done anything to her. Anything. And it would have been her
fault, because she put herself in your power. When your put in some-
yourself
one
else's power you're nothing, nobody. You just have to accept hap-
what
pens." (G, pp. 85-86)

Glen is used to Martin's tirades and keeps quiet. As he talks, Glen can
smell
Martin's after-shave which is :

fine by itself, but for some reason it smelled like rotten eggs Martin
when
…

putit on. (G, p.85)

After things calm down, Glen sneaks down to the basement. Bonnie had left two

mar1]uana'clgaretteS in the car

and he decides to try them. He's not a marl]uana

user bllt he hopes they will make him high and it will be :

… like starting all over

again. (G, p. 86)

He hides in the wood room them, but he feels no different. Just as he's
and smokes
to leave, he hears Martin in the laundry room. Martin starts ironlng a big
ready
pile of shirts. He sings as he irons and Glen thinks he :

‥. had never heard a worse

noise. (G, p. 87)

Glen in the wood He

stays room.
sits in the dark waiting for Martin to finish.

Glen is completely dominated by his cutthroat boss. He has had no long-term in-

timacy with a woman

although he seems
embarrassed about it since he often tells

strangers he's engaged. He even thinks of marrlage in his boss's words implying a

wife is a burden and an

obstacle to success. He does nothing when his boss berates

bin. He lives in his boss's house and drives his car but is unaware
of the irony

when his boss tells him it's stupid to be in someone

else's power. The boss has a disa-

greeable personality and Glen finds even his smell and voice repugn･ant, but he lives
 Fiction and Truth : The Works of Tobias Wolff 121

with him. After a brush with death he has a feeling he should change his life, but

it doesn't occur to him to move out on his boss. He's so timid that he's afraid of
direction He
women, afraid of his boss, and afraid of taking of his own life. ends
up alone, in the dark, hiding from a man he dislikes.

"The Poor Are Always With Us"19) is about a young man

just starting out

who refuses to acknowledge how he takes advantage of an

older man at the end of
a broken career. RllSSell is twenty-one and works for a computer company in

California. His family lives three thousand miles away. Already he makes nearly
twice as much money as his father who is a
math teacher. Russell owns a Porsche

and, while he's at the mechanic's getting it fixed, he gets into an argument with an-

other customer about the name

of a singer they hear on the radio. Russell is cer-

tain he's right and bets his car. The other man's name is Dave. He's also a

computer englneer but much older. He thinks Russell is too young for a Porsche.

He's extremely touchy and his friend, Groves, who also works for a computer com-

pany, keeps trylng tO Calm him down. Russell tries to join in their conversation,

but Dave reacts irritably every time. The three of them discuss a man
who had
)

Dave
sold his company s secrets. At one
point says :

"Well then, I guess you know it all･ From the lofty perspective of y?ur
twenty-two years." (B, p. 67)

Russell had tried to seem

older and had lied about his age.

"I don't know it all," Russell said. "I know the difference between right and

wrong, though." (β,p. 67)

Dave tells Russell he'll bet his Speedster. He loses it, glVeS Russell the registration

papers to the car, leaves. Russell decides to glVe it back because he knows it
and
had been an
unfair bet. He had been certain of the slnger's name but, nevertheless,
had provoked Dave into betting. When Dave arrives with the car, he is followed by

a woman in an old station wagon. He tells Russell that he had been glVen the

Speedster by his company for his good ideas and that Russell doesn't deserve the

car. Dave wants to flip a for it and puts up his station wagon. Russell is
coin
Dave's anger goes He Dave off. The
afraid of and along. wins again. walks
woman runs
after him and screams. Russell goes out for dinner. When he returns

Groves is waiting for him. They go inside and Groves can't believe the sterility of
Russell's apartment.
122 Betb B. HigglnS

"What's this number?" ‥‥ "You in trainlng tO be a monk or

something?"
(β,p.75)

Russell tells him he had lived there a time it had been

only short although eight

months.

"No pictures, no
spunds, no box," Groves went on. "No nothing. You

sure
you live here?" (B, p. 76)

Groves tells Russell a story Dave and Vietnam which Russell doesn't be-
sad about
lieve. Groves is frustrated by Russell's lack of imagination and begins explainlng
He that Dave had been but it's all gone now･ He
again. says exceptionally creative

says Dave's had out on him. Russell says he won't give the
also wife walked
Speedster back to Dave directly because he is frightened and would always wonder

about his motivation. He slgnS the car over to Groves who in turn can glVe it to

Dave. He keeps the station wagon because it had been a fair bet in his oplnion･
Groves disappears. Sometimes Russell happens to see Dave, but they never
speak･
For nearly a year:

… Russell made angry faces, and shook his head, and glared at things witb-

out seelng them as he rehearsed agaln and again the proofs of his own de-

cency. (B, p. 79)

One April evenlng Russell sees Dave having great difficulty trylng tO Cross a busy

road.

At that moment he would have glVen Dave he had his money,

everything
--

his car, his job, everything -

but what was the point? It didn't make sense

trying to help Dave, because Dave be helped. Whatever Russell gave

couldn't
him he would lose. It ]'ust wasn't in the cards for him to have anything. (B,

p.80)

Dave gets across

and keeps walking. For a moment :

Russell felt a little lost, and thought, I'm on EI CaTniTW. He was on EI

Camino. (β,p. 80)

Russell is disoriented. He's far from bone and making more money than his
 Fiction and Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff 123

father ever
will. He has done nothing to make a home out of his apartment. He
has no pictures, nO
music, not even a television. He's also he be-
self-righteous;
lieves he knows what's right and wrong. He thinks he had won the old car fairly

and won't glVe it back even though Dave's had had left him.
wife screamed and
His lack of compassion is also demonstrated by the method he devises to return the
Speedster. He wants to be sure
of the purlty Of his own
motivations, which is

ironic considering that he knows the bet was

unfair. He doesn't seem to under-
Dave's feelings losing his prized Dave is
stand about possession. jealous of Russell
for being what he himself once was no longer is; he attacks him for having too
and

much too soon. In the process he loses his wife and the car
which is the symbol of
his former
self･ Russell shows no
understanding of this and justifieseverything by

telling himself Dave is fated to lose. Besides being the young man
self-centered,
has become a cynlC.

"Wordly Goods"20) is another story featuring a man a car. Davis is from

and
Louisiana･ He lives in New York One day he impulsively buys old, flashy
now. an

car. It reminds Davis of his boyhood because his best friend had had the same

kind･ He discovers it's not in good condition and is thinking of drivlng lt until it

won't run any more. Soon he has an

accident. As he is drivlng down the street a

woman backs into him. She's upset and be tries to comfort her by saylng :

"it wasn't all your fault. I should have been paylng Closer attention."
-

(G,p.103)

Her name is Clara. Sbe's a businesswoman who says she's afraid of her husballd be-
he beats her. The description of her appearance is
cause a ex-
and mannerisms good
ample of Wolff's ability to bring a
character to life.

Davis had seen few women as tall as the one

who emerged from the com-

pact, and as
she uncoiled from her seat he had the sense a biologト
of watching
cal process. (G, p. 103)

After she gets out of the car, Davis gets a better look at her.

She was wearlng yellow designer sunglasses and her hair was a
covered with
yellow scarf. She had bony wrists and her knees, fully beneath the
exposed
hem of her blue dress, were
also bony. As she spoke away
she chipped methodi-
cally at a
ridge of paint on the trunk of the compact, uslng her fingernails

like tools. (G, p. 103)

124 Betb B. HigglnS

When Davis goes to file a

claim with his insurance company, he gets angry at the ad-

juster.

"You've completely twisted my words around," ….

(G, p. 105)

He accuses the of trying to Clara's The de-

adjuster make company pay. adjuster
nies it and insists he's trying to protect Davis, but he writes another report. He

thinks Davis is a
genuine Southern gentleman. In a few days, Davis gets a
call
from the who wants to speak to him about something Important. Davis
adjuster
feels guilty and decides to :

withdraw his claim that very day. (G, p. 109)

When he meets
adjuster, he
with the learns that Clara had made a
claim that he is re-

for the accident. He the him he basn't filed his

sponsible smiles when adjuster tells
report. This time he lets the the report as be wishes. However, he's un-
adjuster write
comfortable with the situation and visits a
couple who are
old friends of his from
Louisiana. They are doing the dishes and he waits in the living room. After explain-
1ng everything, he asks their advice. The husband is angry.

"I'm not impressed with this display of virtue," he said. "If you really want

to do something worthwhile why didn't you help us

with the dishes? In the
five months you stayed here us
you never once
offered to the
with wash
dishes."

He followed Davis to the door. "Nothing lS enough for you," he

good

said. "When you were looking at apartments they were

always too big or

small, too far from work or too close to the traffic. It doesn't take any-

body five months to find an apartment. And when we took you to parties
you acted bored and left early. Oh, what the hell. I'm sorry!" (G, p. 112)

Next, Davis decides to talk things over Clara. He drives to her house but
with
his mind thinking how this gesture be used him. In the
changes might against end,
he receives the money to repair the car. Davis had taken the car to two mechanics
for estimates. One of them had hoped to cheat the insurance company. Richie, a

neighborhood boy, and his friend bad also been interested in repalrlng it. Davis

chooses the mechanic he trusts. The mechanic makes it look and run
much better

than it had before.

 Fiction and Truth : The Works of Tobias Wolff 125

When Davis went down to pick it up be was

surprised at how beautiful

tbe car was. (G, p. 113)

In terms had been fortuitous. The invites

of the car, the accident adjuster calls and
bin to dinner. He tries to bin his wife's but Davis re-
entice with good cooking,
fuses to have anything to do with him because he doesn't respect him. One Sunday

he finds Richie and his friend messlng With his car. Richie's friend is sitting In-

side. The lock is broken, but even

after it is repaired he worries. Soon the car is sto-

len. One night while he is sleeping, the thieves drive by his apartment several times

very fast in his car. This last scene portrays his sense
of lost youth. He dreams be

is in his hometown, drinking aS his friend drives at full

and singlng speed.
Outside, his own car passes and the englne detonates shocking Davis out of his

sleep:

… as if his own heart had misfired. (G, p. 116)

In the "Poor Are Always With Us", the car is the symbol of Dave's creativity.
He foolishly it away. In "Worldly Goods", is
gambles the car a
symbol of Davis's

youth. It's stolen from him. Davis is weak and vacillating. At first he wants to

file he feels guilty

of the then to his
a correct report accident; and wants withdraw
claim; next, he decides to file a
misleading claim; he regrets it and goes to his
friends for advice; after that, he decides to discuss it with Clara; then he gives up

discussing it with Clara. All this goes on despite the fact that he had bo喝ht the
car on a
whim and, before the accident, had thought the car wasn't worth repair-
1ng. He is smug and unaware
of his own
egocentrism; he is full of disdain for the ad-

juster who solves his problems for him; he gives up talking things over
with Clara

because hers afraid people will take advantage of his good manners but never ques-

tions his own

rudeness in refusing the dinner invitation; he doesn't hesi-
adjuster's
tate to burden his friends with his problems, but in five months of living with
them had never
offered to help and had shown his boredom left
and early when
they had invited him to come to them. He is an con-
along parties with emotionally
stricted man, but sleep gives him release. He dreams of when he was young and

wild with his friend. But outside in the night the symbol of his youth, which has
been stolen from him, goes past agaln and agaln, taunting him. It ends his dream
by misfiring and he feels his heart has misfired too.

"The Misslng Person",21) the final story in this group, differs from the other

four in two respects. First, it's a

professional requlrement that the main character
be single; he's a
priest. Second, he's lucky. In the the
other stories, main
126 Beth B. HigglnS

characters don't know how to become, or

avoid becomlng the kind of people they

want to be. There is a sense

of drifting and waste. The priest falls into the hands

of a con man
who teaches bin how to enjoy life. Father Leo had wanted to be a
mis-
sionary ln the wilds of Alaska where be had thought the trappers and lndians

need him. However, he had been sent to a in West Seattle the

would parish where

old parish priest had disliked him and had asslgned him to minor tasks. After the

old priest had died, Father Leo had hoped to take over the parish but a monslgnOr

had been brought in, which had made Father Leo think of:

...
leaving the priesthood.... (B, p. 21)

Father Leo had been asked to :

stay on
and teach religion in the parish elementary school. (β,p. 21)

He had because he badn't known

accepted what else to do. Years had passed and he

had enjoyed teaching because the students had :

to Father Leo at these moments he felt

attention what said, and
…paid
glad to be where he was. (β,p. 21)

From time to time, he had been sent new teaching materials but bad ignored them be-

cause he had:

… found the changes confusing and stopped trying to keep up. (β,p. 21)

The be
education office had found out about it, and had been fired. The monslgnOr

had found him a

position at a convent.

Mother Vincent at Star of the Sea needed a new

chaplain. Their last chap-

lain had married one

of the nuns. (β,p. 22)

Father Leo thinks :

It was a
job for an
old priest, or one recoverlng from something :
sickness, al-

cohol, a breakdown. (B, p. 22)

At the convent, several of the nuns Ignore his advice and he is unhappy. There are
 Fiction and Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff 127

two types nuns the "rowdy''ones and the qulet OneS. To describe the quiet
of
--

ones, Wolff uses a

memorable simile :

Coming upon these sad, silent nuns in the corridor or on the grounds, Father

Leo felt a
chill. It was like swimming into a
cold pocket in a lake. (B, p. 22)

He is dismayed by the behavior of the wild nuns. After listening to his complaints

times, Mother Vincent proposes that he help Jerry. Jerry raises money for
several
the convent. This fund-raiser is a con man
who tells people all kinds of preposter-
ous
stories to get them to donate money. He is usually successful. Father Leo bad

known nothing about the finances of the convent and is surprised at how serious
the situation is. Watching Jerry con people doesn't upset Father Leo. He thinks :

They had of money, too much money. It was

good for them to share
plenty
it. Anyway, Jerry was a performer, not a liar. Lying was selfish, fllrtive,
low. What Jerry did was
reckless and grand, for a
good cause. (B, p. 28)

In fact:

be
…
he was having the time of his life. Jerry called him "Slim,''and liked

that. He liked getting into Jerry's big car

and drivlng through the convent

gate no idea wo111d happen that day. He looked forward to the

with what
lunches they ate downtown‥‥ the coffee afterwards, and one
of Jerry's sto-

ries about his days in the navy. Father Leo came to need these pleasures,

most of all the pleasure of watching Jerry have it his way with people who
were used to having it their way. (β,p. 29)

Jerry thinks they're a great team :

He had the blarney and Father Leo had the collar, which Jerry called "The

Persuader." (B, p. 29)

They had collected far more money than Jerry had been able to collect by himself.

Father Leo finds the situation ideal. His :

was just to sit there. He didn't have to say anything･. If someone

…job
should look at him in a questionlng Way, all he had to do was
close his eyes.
No nodding. No murmurlng.
128 Beth B. Hig･glnS

"We'll rake it in,''Jerry said, and they did. (β,p. 29)

One day they go to see a

vice-president of Boeing. Father Leo thinks he's overbear-

1ng. Suddenly Father Leo says :

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," (β,p. 30)

and the vice-president :

over. He buried his face in the crook of his arm. ``You don't know
…bent
the half of it,''be said. His shoulders began to jerk.
Jerry looked at Father Leo and gave the thumbs-up. He went around the
desk and stood behind the man. "There, there," he said. (B, pp. 30-31)

Then the vice-president glVeS them :

... a
plastic garbage bag. (B, p. 31)

It contains :

… seven thousand dollars, all in twenties. (β,p. 31)

They go to a bar Father Leo gets a little drunk. Jerry that he doesn't
and confides
use his true name. He had changed it to avoid golng tO Prison for deceiving some cus-

tomers he had sold insurance to. He is the his real

on verge of telling name
when
Father Leo stops him. After that there seems to be some distance between them so

Father Leo makes up a story about himself saylng that in high school he bad killed
a man
who had been trying to rob a woman
and had hurt her. Jerry thinks that's

why Father Leo had become a

priest.
Jerry thinks they should be rewarded for being so
successful the Boeing
with
man
and wants a trlp tO L乱s Vegas. Father Leo goes along the idea because
with
he's sure Mother Vincent She doesn't. They go on Thanksgivlng
will refuse. Week-

end and everything is paid for. Jerry thinks they are fated to win big because

things are golng SO

Well for them. He thinks it's an omen
when he hits the jackpot
on his first try. Father Leo decides he had better tell Jerry the trlltb about himself

and confesses that he isn't a killer. Jerry doesn't believe him. He thinks he's just try-
1ng tO cover up his guilt. Father Leo gets even more
confllSed Jerry says he
when
had told one
of the nuns. The nun is a big gosslp, but if Father Leo goes back to
 Fiction and Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff 129

the convent and tells the truth they would think he:

...

went around telling crazy lies about himself. In its own way, that was

just､as bad. (β,p.37)

While be is thinking this in his room, Jerry disappears. Father Leo goes to
about
the bar for a drink and sees a
red-headed woman
smoking. When he retllrnS tO his

room, he meets her again On the elevator. She is small and has a terrible sunburn.
Father Leo sees that :

She was
about his age, older than he'd thought. There were
wrinkles around
her mouth. (β,p. 39)

They floor his The follow-

get off at the same
and she remarks on room
number.
1ng afternoon, in the hotel coffee shop, she comes in and sits down next to him at

the counter. She says her name is Sandra. He:

not want to know this woman's name

and he did not want her to
…did
know his name. But she kept waiting. "Slim," he said. (B, p.41)

She says she is from Chicago and offers to buy him another cup of coffee. He re-

fuses leaves. Up in his room he discovers the hundred dollars'worth

and of chips
he had been glVen aS part Of the package arrangement had been stolen. The descrlp-

tion of his reaction forms an image of frustrated animals: a sort of combination

of a lion and a
gorilla,

The things Father Leo didn't any sense. They were

said make only noises.
He kept paclng the room. He himself over the heart. He his
struck grlpped

shirt in both hands and tore it open to his waist. He struck himself agaln.

Back and forth he walked.

The he made grew distant, then Father Leo
sounds soft and stopped.

stood there. (β,p, 42)

He glVeS up the theft because he doesn't want to get involved the po-
reporting with
lice and have to explain he had come to Las Vegas. As he had done in the morn-
why
1ng, he goes out looking for Jerry. Again he has no luck. Around sunset he goes to

the hotel pool. Sandra comes

and starts chatting. She asks him about his wife.
When he replies that he isn't married, she tells bin she isn't either. He doesn't
130 Betb ち. HigglnS

to talk her, but he answers her his interests. She says

want with questions about
her interests are the same. She rubs on her skin. When she wants his help with
oil
her back, he refuses he's a She doesn't believe someone
named
and explains priest.
Slim is a
priest･ He tries to explain about his nickname, but she won't listen･ She

gathers up her things and says :

"If you were apriest, you wouldn't have let me go on like l did･ You
would-

n't have let me make a fool of myself." (B, p.45)

The scene
ends as Sandra says :

"…if you come near me

again I'll scream." (β,p.45)

That evenlng, Father Leo every hospital in town. He's afraid some-
checks with
〉

thing had happened to Jerry. He can't ask the for help because of Jerry s
police
In the he gets from him. Jerry that he's
past. middle of the night a call explains
in an ongolng POker game and, exceptlng four hundred dollars, he had lost all his

money as well as the Boeing money. He can't go back to Seattle. Father Leo offers
to tell Mother Vincent he, not Jerry, had taken the money, but Jerry He's
refuses.
he's golng tO it all back with the money he has left. Father Leo
convinced Win
can't him to go back to Seattle together. As soon as they hang up,
persuade
Sandra calls. She asks if it's trlle he's a
priest and asks him to come
and stay with
her. She thinks someone had tried to break into her room. He doesn't want to go,

but he agrees. In her room, they talk about how L乱s Vegas is. She asks bin
awful
he lives. He how lie he had Jerry
about the place thinks the told will have changed
He smiles and visualizes :
everything_.

The hallways empty at qulet. The sisters falling silent as he

night and

walked past them, their eyes downcast. (B, p. 51)

She insists that lucky like friends

sometimes people are some
of hers who had皿et

at a dentist's office and had ended up getting married. She asks bin if he could
love her if he weren't a He reflects, and decides he could. She asks the rea-
priest.
sons
and he tells her one
after another. She asks him not to leave. He tells her

he'll stay and she falls asleep. He sits by the door in case someone tries to get in.

Time passes. Sandra talks in her sleep. He says :

"It's all right," ‥‥ "Ⅰ'm here." (β,p.54)

 Fiction Truth: The Works of Tobias Wolff 131
and

Person". There is
Wolff has the plot of "The Misslng a pro-
carefully structured
gression of scene layered upon scene building to the possibility of the protagonist's

Leo had joined the because he

getting control of his own life. Father priesthood
to be needed. He hoped for a life of adventure･ In fact, his first position is
wanted
dismal. Initially, he's angry his second but discovers he likes it be-
about position
the seem interested. However, his superiors judge him incompetent
cause students
he loses it. He thinks his third is a dead feels he has sunk to
and position end and
the bottom. Actually, a whole new is opened up to him it is the Mother
wdrld and
superior (certainly an example of Wolff's overall tone of merriment) who makes
the introduction. He becomes the student of a master of the art of getting people

to him he his tutelage Father Leo learns･ Instead of

glVe what wants, and under
drifting letting things happen, he starts to make things happen･ When
and simply
doh
he reaches the of forclng target tO thousand
seven
stage an arrogant Surrender
l

1ars, it's time for his final test. He's

whisked off to gamblers paradise and there

he's The pressure is severe he starts slipplng･ He won't gamble his

abandoned. and
they are To no he runs in circles searching for his
chips and stolen･ avail around
Every time he reaches home base the sunburned is waitlng for him･
guide･ redhead
When the comes,
she immediately summons him to her room･
good-bye call
Against his will he goes; they talk; he finds he can love her･ She needs him; he

brings her peace; he over her･ Will he go back to nights at the empty･
watches
Will he to the for the sleeplng
silent convent? continue make nights all right
It's Thanksgivlng in Las Vegas.
woman?

to
On this note of a
gamble, this portion of Section One draws to a
close･ Due

five short stories will be considered in ensu-

limitations of space, the remainlng an

1ng article. One of those stories concerns a

writer･ The others are
about men or

boys. They depict the between friends and between soldiers･ After that,
relations
the article will consider Wolff's relation to other writers, which leads to an
examina-
follows For
tion of his language･ There a
study of his prlZeWinnlng nOVella･ now,

it's time to let the storyteller rest.

132 Beth B. HigglnS

NOTES

1) Tobias Wolff, ed., Matter占of Life and Death: New American Stories, hardcover
ed" (1982; Green Harbor, Mass.: Wampeter, 1983), introd., p. xi.

2) Tobias Wolff, This Boy's Life: A Memoir, (New York: The Atlantic Monthly
Press, 1989). In Part One it was
mentioned that the is dedicated to his two
memoir
sons･ The Wolff family now includes a young daughter.
3) Tobias Wolff, In the Garden th,e North of
American Martyrs, (1981; New York:
The Ecco Press, 1986). In the text, hereafter cited as G.
parenthetically
4) Tobias Wolff, Bach in the World, (1986; New York: Bantam Books, 1989). In the
text, hereafter cited parenthetically as且For hardcover ed,, see notes to Part One.
5) "Maiden Voyage," In the Garden the NoT･th American Martyrs, pp. 88-100.
of
6) "NextDoor," ibid., pp.SIS.

7) "Leviathan," Bach in the World, pp. 179-195.

8) "SayYes," ibid., pp.55-62,

9) "Face to Face," In the Garde'"fthe North American Martyrs, pp. 61-72.
10) "Desert Breakdown, 1968," Bach in the World, pp, 1211158.

ll) "poaching," In the Garde'"fthe North American Martyrs, pp. 136-154.

12) "The Liar,''ibid., pp. 155-175.

13) "Coming Attractions," Bach in the World, pp. 1-16.

14) "The Rich Brother," ibid., pp. 197-22l.

15) "An Episode in the Life of Professor Brooke," In the Garden the North
of
American Martyrs, pp. 27-43.
16) "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs," ibid., pp. 123-135.
17) "Sister," Bach in the World, pp. 81-92.

18) "Passengers,''In the Garden the North American Martyrs, 73-87.

of pp.

19) "The PoorAre Always With Us," Bach in the World, pp. 63180.

20) "Worldly Goods," In the Garden

of the North American Martyrs, pp. 1011116.
21) "The Missing Person," Bach in the World, pp. 17-54.