Our Story Begins
Our Story Begins brings together twenty one of Tobias Wolff's short stories, including ten new pieces and eleven drawn from his earlier collections In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, Back in the World, and The Night in Question. Wolff writes spare, exact stories about ordinary people caught in moments of moral testing, self deception, and small revelation. His characters lie, regret, reach for grace, and often fall short, and Wolff observes them with sympathy and a sharp ear for how people actually speak. The collection shows his range across decades while keeping a consistent interest in honesty, memory, and the gap between who people are and who they wish to be. It serves both as an introduction to his work and a gathering of his best short fiction.
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What you might want to know about Our Story Begins
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A collection gathering Tobias Wolff's new short stories alongside selected favorites from his earlier work.
No. The book mixes ten new stories with eleven selected from Wolff's earlier collections.
Both. He wrote the acclaimed memoir This Boy's Life, but he is also one of America's most respected short story writers.
Our Story Begins was written by Tobias Wolff, published in 2008 by Alfred A. Knopf.
Our Story Begins is 379 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Our Story Begins takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Our Story Begins is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.