Tobias Wolff

A son sits at his mother's deathbed, hesitant to leave her side. He leafs through one of her old photo albums, remembering her abusive, estranged father. When a visit to a funeral home turns into a conversation with a beautiful, mysterious woman, he develops a deeper-and perhaps darker-understanding of his relationship with his mother.

An introspective story of neighbors, movies, and marriage from short-story master Tobias Wolff Lying stiffly in their separate beds, a husband and his wife are woken in the middle of the night to the sound of their fighting neighbors. There are three of them-a man, a woman, and a young child. With their blasting stereos, violent interludes, and steamy make-up sessions, the wife has had enough. The husband, however, is preoccupied with other thoughts-sex,...

With his marriage on the rocks, a father takes his son skiing for the weekend. After insisting on staying just a bit longer-despite a growing blizzard-the boy's father finds they're snowed in at the resort, the road blockaded by state troopers. To what lengths will he go to keep his marriage intact?

Tobias Wolff's masterful short-story about one woman's quiet revenge on the pomposity and arrogance of academia Meticulous, funny, eccentric-Mary has always been mindful of the complex role she plays as a professor of history. Her lectures are carefully written out beforehand; her departmental loyalties ambiguous. She is so careful, in fact, that she began to see herself as flat, dull, and lifeless. The closing of Brandon College, the institution...

Lady, suffocating in the car on a hot summer's day, slips into a feverish dream. Robert, her husband, watches her slip into unconsciousness as he drives. He's a soldier, a man of principle, well-educated and well-adjusted. But Robert is also a man with an agenda; he has married this young, wild lower-class girl to spite his father, and now he regrets it. How much does Lady know about Robert's intentions, and how far will he go to set things straight?...

Burke, a San Francisco lawyer, is defending a woman who has been disabled by a botched surgery. His client has a personal connection to Burke, and the trial happens to be taking place in his Ohio hometown, a place ravaged by fallen industries and greedy corporations. While taking a deposition from a particularly difficult witness, Burke calls for a break and takes a walk around the neighborhood where he grew up. A chance encounter with a beautiful...

Theresa left the Marines after twenty-two years to start a new life. Her husband had moved on to a second wife, and her son had recently enlisted. Now Theresa is going to school, getting a degree in hotel management. But it is her art history class she finds most interesting, and a chance encounter with her professor leaves her with new fears for her life, for the future-and for her son.

Ann's friends envy her. None of their husbands even lift a finger to help with the household chores. Ann's husband is different, though. Then a simple hypothetical conversation while they wash and dry the dishes causes Ann to see her husband in a different light-and causes him to rethink the way two people can know one another.

García, the wealthy, swaggering son of a foreign dictator, invites two lower-class boys from his boarding school to have dinner in New York along with his Spanish-speaking stepmother, Linda. When the group decides to go to a kitschy, unpretentious Swedish smorgasbord rather than a fine restaurant, García refuses to leave the limousine, still angry with Linda after an argument over money. Linda proves to be more than the young men had anticipated,...

Two drugged-out couples contemplate life and morality in "Leviathan," a classic short-story by the masterful Tobias Wolff. For Helen's thirtieth birthday party, her husband decides to throw her a small party. Armed with booze and three grams of cocaine, the four partyers-Helen, her husband, and another couple-spend the night and the next morning in a drug-induced stupor. As their talk turns to past misdeeds and shameful acts, the couples begin to...