This Boy's Life

In 1957, young Tobias Wolff and his nomadic, free-spirited mother Caroline arrive in Salt Lake City in search of a fresh start. After being followed by an unwelcome ex-boyfriend, Caroline impulsively moves Toby to Seattle instead. Six months later, Toby has become a juvenile delinquent, prefers to be called Jack, and is unimpressed with Caroline's pompous new suitor Dwight Hansen. For Thanksgiving, Dwight brings Caroline and Jack to his home in Concrete, a small town near the northern Cascade Mountains. Introducing them to his three children, Dwight is secretly furious when Caroline outperforms him at the town turkey shoot. After the rebellious Jack is suspended from school, Caroline sends him to live with Dwight for the next few months, revealing she is considering marrying him. Dwight's domineering nature soon becomes apparent as he berates Jack on the frightening drive to Concrete. Controlling and insecure, he forces Jack to join the Boy Scouts and withholds his paper route money. Caroline and Dwight are married, and she discovers his abusive ways on their wedding night, but believes he is having a positive influence on her son. After a fistfight with his classmate Arthur Gayle, an effeminate misfit, Jack is subjected to a humiliating boxing lesson by Dwight, but soon befriends Arthur. Jack endures continued abuse from Dwight, who selfishly trades Jack's rifle for a dog, and badly beats Jack for taking a joyride in his car. Two years later, Jack has returned to his delinquent ways, while Caroline stands up to Dwight and decides to work for the Kennedy campaign. Jack realizes he has been acting like Dwight, straining his friendship with Arthur, but dedicates himself to joining his older brother in Princeton. Although Dwight tries to discard Jack's applications to East Coast preparatory schools, Arthur helps him falsify his grades. After numerous rejections, Jack resigns himself to life in Concrete. Taking a job at the A&P, he manages to impress an interviewer for the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and earns a full scholarship. He defends himself in a violent fight with Dwight and is saved by Caroline; They finally leave Dwight and Concrete behind. Preparing to make the journey to school, Jack says goodbye to his mother as she boards a bus to her own new life. Some time later, Dwight has died in Concrete; his children have raised their own families in Seattle; Arthur has become a successful businessman in Italy; Caroline has happily remarried; Tobias Wolff was kicked out of school and served in the Vietnam War before becoming a writer and professor with a family of his own.

Plot from This Boy's LifeCC BY-SA 4.0