The Night In Question: Stories

I loved every story in this book, even the ones I didn't enjoy as much they still left me pondering. I loved the perspective shift he does in some of his stories, all the characters are relatable, and the realism is enough to be familiar but still surprises and impresses me with the story content. I've never read Tobias Wolff before and I would certainly reread this one.

First let me just state that the whole of The Night In Question by Tobias Wolff is really great. Each story is written in such a way that you feel like someone really familiar is just talking to you -- face to face -- and you don't want to leave.Second, if you can't read the whole book of short stories for some reason (you would really need a good one), then you need to spend some time reading the last story in the collect, Bullet in the Brain. I read this story in another collection of short stories by contemporary authors, and it's always been in the back of my head as one of the best. I just finished reading The Night in Question, and Bullet in the Brain was the ending of Wolff's collection. Having the chance to read the story again without seeking it out was great. Essentially, Bullet in the Brain is about a man who just can't shut-up during a bank robbery. But then the ending pretty much slaps you in the face because Wolff took one incident that would basically end any story and just moves it right along. I would have to tell the ending of the short story in order to explain this -- and I really don't want to -- but believe me, it's the most creative and interesting ending to a short story like itself.I was lucky enough to see a reading performed by Wolff at my university, and I will never forget the author's ease with the audience, and his smooth readings. Like he knew us all, and we knew him, and the story he wrote was meant just for us.

I've only read Tobias Wolff's short stories--both this book and the ones from "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs"--but this collection has continually left me speechless. Story after story focuses on the everyday happenings of mostly "ordinary" people with an attention to detail that reminds me of eastern poets. Yet Wolff blends his take on things with a distinctly "American" flavor--that is, he's an American writer at his best. Stories like "The Chain" and "Bullet in the Brain" are emphatic in their declarations of the human condition. After reading many of them, I couldn't wait to share some particular passage or insight with a loved one--or a stranger, for that matter. In this collection, moreso than "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs", I got the distinct impression of a vibrant, funny, quietly wise writer who--as Holden Caulfield from "The Catcher in the Rye" might have said--I really wish were a personal friend.

"The Night in Question" is one of the best short story collections I've ever read. Tobias Wolff understands fully what F. Scott Fitzgerald meant when he said, "Action is character." Wolff takes the reader's breath away not through twists of plot, but through his extensive knowledge of the human mind and heart, and how different minds and hearts work at cross-purposes. He knows the dirty little secret behind every human existence: because we are not each other, we betray each other. He knows why, in the title story, a woman is deeply offended by a sermon while her recovering alcoholic brother finds it completely inspiring; he knows why, in "Firelight," a woman can't wait to flee an apartment she came to see about renting, while her young son wants to stay there forever. Wolff is a master at following the labyrinthine mental paths people take to justify their actions to themselves, to the point where much madness makes divinest sense. I found myself crying, "Fool! Fool!" at Wiley, the self-deluding, lovelorn protagonist of "The Life of the Body," and my jaw dropped at the superbly ironic final sentence of "The Chain," a brilliantly original variant of Patricia Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train." Above all, Wolff understands the profound isolation of being a human soul trapped in an individual body; at one time or another, everyone has felt like Joyce, the main character of "Migraine," that, "In fact, everyone was alone all the time, but when you got sick you knew it, and that was a lot of what suffering was--knowing." These stories deserve to be anthologized forever and taught in every serious school of writing in this country.

For fans of Raymond Carver, who wonder how his prose might have evolved had he not died in 1988, "The Night In Question" provides a possible glimpse. Wolff and Carver's close friendship is well-documented. And although Wolff is his own man and my favorite living writer, I believe that there's a tangible link between Carver's final stories, such as "Blackbird Pie" and "Errand," and Wolff's recent work. Wolff keeps Carver's legacy alive in a totally original, compelling way. I have read "The Night In Question" no less than four times. I have listened to the abridged audio version (abridged in the number of stories only) 7 times. There is a sheer mastery of the short story form here that astounds me. Bob Dylan once said of Gordon Lightfoot: "Every time I hear a Gordon Lightfoot song, I wish it would never end." I can imagine Carver saying the same thing about Wolff, for similar reasons. This book makes a great gift and is required reading for anyone serious about the art and craft of short fiction. I wished every story would never end.