It’s very good writing, pretty but spare, not like I remember the movie at all.   It’s frustrating in spots, certainly, but if Wolff had had some sort of getting-it-together epiphany, it would have felt fake, and Wolff is just direct enough about his own past shortcomings without making us feel like we’re necessarily supposed to approve.   And his use of the language is just gorgeous; it’s tricky to write that way in a memoir and not cross the line into maudlinity, but he uses just enough of that ornamentation.   It’s a great commute book, too, because you can come in and out of it.   (10/21/05)

Share!