SUMMARY
On page 51, Toby and his mother run into a man on the beach and his name is Gill. Gill invites Toby's mother and Toby back to his house an so they go back and Gill promises to give Toby a new bike. Later in the night, Toby's mother goes on a date with Gill, but when she comes home she is crying. Toby didn't ask any questions, but he knew that he was not going to receive the bicycle that Gill promised.
In the next chapter, Toby explains that his mother, Marian, and Kathy decided to rent a house together. Toby's mother ends up buying a house that is in major need of repair; the front door was broken, the stairs were collapsed to the porch, and the wallpaper was falling off. Toby then goes into a future outlook explaining that Kathy soon had a baby boy. Marian suspected and basically knew that Toby had two personalities and when she questioned Toby about his whereabouts Toby lied. Marian would try to convince his mother but she would not believe her, and she did not believe in hard discipline because Rosemary's father was very stern. Toby then describes his adventures with Silver and Taylor such as breaking windows during both day and night, and worse criminal acts such as stealing. Stealing ended up being an addiction to Toby.
A few months later, Toby introduces the reader to Dwight. Dwight was an oddly dressed mechanic who would come by on the weekends to take his mother out on dates. Dwight would commute 3 to 4 hours every weekend from a town called Chinook to Seattle to see Toby's mother. Things began to become routine and Dwight invited them for Thanksgiving. They agreed and went to Thanksgiving in Chinook with Dwight and his family. Dwight had a senior named Skipper who worked on cars, a junior daughter named Norma who Toby had a crush on, and a young daughter named Pearl who Toby didn't like very much. This scene of Thanksgiving just provided the reader with a lot of characterization on Dwight and his family, but it went well for the most part.
In the next chapter, Toby is in the bathroom smoking a cigarette with Taylor, Silver, and two members referred to as weed fiends. Toby is telling them about a made up story that he blew off a turkey's head in Chinook and Taylor calls him out. The next lines are filled with an argument between the boys in which the f-word is used in almost every empty space between a sentence where it could fit and have a chance of making sense. Angered by his friend Taylor's remark, Toby etches the line "F*!K OFF" (Not censored in the book) into the freshly painted wall of the boys bathroom. Later in the day, the vice principal pulls Toby out of class and has two eye witnesses, the weed fiends, who claim that he did the obscene gesture. Toby lies constantly and his mother is brought into the school. After headed debate and multiple lies from Toby, they eventually see the principal of the school who eventually concurs with Toby's mother and lets him off with nothing. When they got home Toby's mother told Toby that Dwight thinks he should live with him and go to school in Chinook and Toby agrees because he feels that he has too.
After this scene, the next chapter portrays Dwight recklessly driving down a curvy road with Toby in the car. Dwight calls out Toby calling him a hotshot and explaining to Toby that he had heard all the stories from Marian about his behaviors. Dwight continues arguing and tells Toby that he is in for a whole nother ball game. Dwight kept his word and hard work and discipline were soon implemented in Toby's life. Dwight forced Toby to husk horse chestnuts every night in the utility room, made Toby pick up a paper route, and join the Boy Scouts. Although Toby was constantly put to work and wasn't connected with Dwight, he still told his mom that things were ok so that she would be happy. Toby did end up enjoying Boy scouts, however, for he began reading and became intrigued in the books he received about stories of boy scouts doing extraordinary things. Toby's mother finally decided that it was time to quit her job and come up to Chinook to live with Dwight and Toby, and so the chapter ends with Dwight painting the whole house white for the arrival of Toby's mom.
RESPONSE: This book is easy to relate to. I enjoy reading this book to here of all the adventures that Toby has in his life. One scene I thought provided some in depth incite was the bathroom scene. The ribald dialect spoken between the characters greatly helped portray the way in which Toby lives his life outside the comfort of his mother. I'd guess the F word was used 15-20 times in this little scene and it provided a sort of comical scene to the story. I also thought that the principal scene was going to end up bad for Toby because he was continuously digging himself further into a hole by lying over and over, but in the end he somehow managed to crawl back out barely escaping the wrath of the vice principal. If I wouldn't have known the genre of this book I would have believed it to be fiction because Tobias Wolff's style of writing is very entertaining and is not dreary or slow like most of the non fiction accounts I have read. I am greatly pleases with this reading selection I've picked out right now.
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