In an interview with CitationLyons and Oliver he talks about his story ‘The Missing Person’ from his collection Back in the World (1985), where a church has rotting foundations and relies on fraudulent charity to keep it going. Wolff identifies with these conflicting feelings himself. Characters must make choices as they struggle with self-doubt as well as questioning the certainty of Christian faith to provide guidance. What perhaps keeps the reader going is a compelling thread in his stories with a moral center as he explores the experiences of characters who are vulnerable, adrift and, in many cases, facing difficult ethical quandaries.Īdditionally, there is a significant religious dimension to Wolff’s works because of the author’s Catholic roots, evident in the modified parables which feature prominently in his stories. Wolff has a tendency to produce narratives that are so bleak, and then so joltingly sudden in their revelations, or in their lack of closure, that he threatens to test his readers’ enjoyment and perseverance beyond the point of discomfort.
Yet, despite his popular readership, his stories are rarely for the fainthearted.
Tobias Wolff’s short stories have gained him widespread acclaim with his works appearing often in The New Yorker and Esquire among other publications.
These precise words depict characters tentatively seeking to redefine themselves in climactic moments of self-growth. In each case, the speaker is doing far more than consoling a person in distress. Three of Wolff’s stories close with the same two words: “I’m here.” I explore why this short sentence has such resonance in his work by drawing connections between these stories which span thirty years. I argue that Wolff shows how a focus on the present rather than on fleeting impulses or a fixation with the past can elucidate his protagonists’ lives.
I argue that the perceived vulnerability of forming relationships and the complex duties of moral decision-making create a tension that forms the basis of much of Wolff’s storytelling. In many of his stories, characters are caught between a guarded sense of distance, versus an imperative to connect with those around them. Wolff depicts characters who must struggle to move away from solipsistic ideologies by seeing beyond habitual cycles of stagnated and destructive behavior. This article argues that Tobias Wolff critiques a doctrine of individualism, formed particularly in America during the Eighties, which has informed a central dynamic in his writing.
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