Old School
Preface

Preface

Introduction

Historical Context

About the Author

Other Works/Adaptations

Discussion Questions

Additional Resources

Credits

Teacher's Guide

Tobias Wolff's Old School is the story of an ambitious, idealistic, and insecure teenager who makes a serious mistake and eventually inherits the consequences. Wolff's unnamed narrator seems so very real that it is hard at times to remember that the book is fiction. The gripping plot has the unpredictability of real life—by turns funny, alarming, satiric, and sad—as well as the moral weight of lived experience. Old School is the first Big Read selection to have been published in the twenty-first century. With writers like Tobias Wolff at work it's easy to be optimistic about the future of American literature.

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular culture. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 NEA report, identified a critical decline in reading for pleasure among American adults. The Big Read aims to address this issue directly by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities.

A great book combines enlightenment with enchantment. It awakens our imagination and enlarges our humanity. It can even offer harrowing insights that somehow console and comfort us. Whether you're a regular reader already or a nonreader making up for lost time, thank you for joining The Big Read.

Dana Gioia
Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts