In the Garden of the North American Martyrs: A Collection of Short Stories

The characters in Tobias Wolff's short stories are typically ordinary people in relatively ordinary circumstances yet he creates through them such vivd glimpses of humanity that we recognize our friends ,relatives,neighbors and ourselves in them.Powerful writing that is subtle and yet somehow unforgettable.All of his short fiction collections are equally enjoyable and I would have a hard time recommending one as opposed to any other. This particular book contains several stories that will pull you in and cause you to want to explore more. This is a book that can be opened at random to any of the selections and read with great enjoyment.

One of my creative writing professor's recommended this book to me, and I adored it! I read This Boy's Life a few years ago, and while I enjoyed it, I wasn't blown away. But, In the Garden of North American Martyrs has given me a new and fierce admiration for Tobias Wolff. Each story is well-crafted without being overtly so. Like Raymond Carver, the style is slightly sparse and gives you the feeling that these people could be your next door neighbors. The characters have that regular joe quality, but they are never ever boring, it only makes the things happening to them more potent. From the man who wrecks his car, to the professor who has a one night stand, each tale is piercingly believable without ever being dull. If you're looking for the kind of short stories anyone could aspire to, read this book!

Tobias Wolff, in this collection, gives up short snippets of ordinary people's lives. And yet the stories, themselves, have an eerie, almost transcendent power to them. It's as though the telling of these events, with a keen eye for the hard-to-see significance lurking underneath the surface, lends them a sort of magical gravity. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the seemingly mundane things permeating everyone's everyday lives may very well have a greater meaning. Not a readily discernible moralizing kind of meaning, but glimpses of what is true. I suppose it takes as sensitive an eye as the one Wolff possesses to discover those truths. I'm glad he at least shared a few of his insights in this collection.

I've read most of Wolff's work, and this is my favorite. The collection spans the colorful spectrum of human emotion and experience, yet there remains a pleasant aftertaste of familiarity in his characters that makes us identify with that life on the page.Whether it's a tubby object of scorn, a disillusioned old man on his 50th anniversary cruise, or a young boy spinning tales for acceptance on a broken-down bus, we feel some sliver of our psyche being worked to the surface when reading these stories by Wolff. He's one of the best storytellers of our generation, and you deserve to discover him. Favorite stories in this collection: Smokers, The Liar, Maiden Voyage, Hunters in the Snow and In the Garden of North American Martyrs