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A Day at the Beach
With these interwoven autobiographical essays, Geoffrey Wolff, author of the acclaimed The Duke of Deception, recounts the moral (and immoral) education of a writer, friend, husband, and father, as he offers his spirited, elegant, and deeply felt observations on an extraordinary from wildly dysfunctional childhood Christmases to a concupiscent career teaching literature in Istanbul; from a victory over the chaos of drink to a life-affirming surrender to the majesty of the Matterhorn; and from a foundering friendship to the transcending love of family.
He shares with us, then, the wisdom of an alert man learning through the unsettling collisions of time, place, and local custom, and through the force of hardship and hazard, to bring his many disparate selves together -- with astonishing high-stakes candor and dazzling literary agility.
He shares with us, then, the wisdom of an alert man learning through the unsettling collisions of time, place, and local custom, and through the force of hardship and hazard, to bring his many disparate selves together -- with astonishing high-stakes candor and dazzling literary agility.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 16, 2014
This was an impulse download as an available library book for a recent trip. I'd never heard of the author before, and to be honest I don't think I'd like his fiction much, nor am I interested in hearing more about his ... unpleasant father than is brought out in this collection. Moreover, I can see why some reviewers felt Wolff came off as a jerk, but I rather liked him. Perhaps it helped that in spite of Choate and Princeton he didn't go on to lead the life of a complete over-achiever. In fact, I found him self-deprecating, rather than self-aggrandizing.
In terms of the content here, it's mostly memoir regarding his father's last days, his time teaching in Istanbul after Princeton, a rather unpleasant (I thought) essay on the strip show at the local fair near his home in Vermont, and a couple of others that I can't recall exactly. The final piece has been referred to as a "novella" elsewhere, and I won't argue with that, although it's a memoir/travel narrative hybrid that I liked best of all (Istanbul being runner up).
I'm considering his book on Maine for my TBR pile, but wouldn't blame anyone who gave up on the book thinking "You mean this guy (Yours Truly) wants more of this author!?" You'll either love this book, or loathe it, but "it was okay" I can't see as an option here.
In terms of the content here, it's mostly memoir regarding his father's last days, his time teaching in Istanbul after Princeton, a rather unpleasant (I thought) essay on the strip show at the local fair near his home in Vermont, and a couple of others that I can't recall exactly. The final piece has been referred to as a "novella" elsewhere, and I won't argue with that, although it's a memoir/travel narrative hybrid that I liked best of all (Istanbul being runner up).
I'm considering his book on Maine for my TBR pile, but wouldn't blame anyone who gave up on the book thinking "You mean this guy (Yours Truly) wants more of this author!?" You'll either love this book, or loathe it, but "it was okay" I can't see as an option here.
August 5, 2012
I'm not sure why Geoff Wolff's recollections of his life are so grating to me-- he is, I suppose, technically a skilled writer . . . maybe simply because I can see his wielding of the tools so clearly? Maybe because he seems to feel he is under some contract to deliver, bubblewrapped, the packets of emotively tinged experience to people who "need" them, having lived somewhat smaller lives than his? All I know is that the tone of these things drives me nuts.
September 25, 2010
"The Duke of Deception" was a favorite of mine, but this collection of memoirish essays is not particularly compelling. The longest, final chapter is about sailing with his wife from the Bahamas back home to Rhode Island. Wolff is a good guy and a good father; but his own father, a bad guy and a truly terrible father, was much more fun to read about!
December 12, 2010
Is there anything better than Geoff Wolff narrating his adventures? I can't think of anything.
He's the best, just the best.
Observant, wry and not afraid to implicate himself. A most honest writer.
He's the best, just the best.
Observant, wry and not afraid to implicate himself. A most honest writer.
August 18, 2016
I bought this because Ann Patchett highly recommended it at her book reading a couple months ago. Thanks for nothin' Ann. Phony self-deprecating manner, over-written, Wolff actually comes off as a jerk if you ask me. Oh well. I bought The Duke of Deception, too. Another waste of money.
February 26, 2021
I love the irreverence of Geoffrey Wolff, love his linguistic fireworks, his sparkling wit and uncompromising erudition, and his honest self-deprecation. So I was having a ball in the first half of this book. The second half was dominated by two very long essays, A Day at the Beach and Waterway that didn’t strike me as insightful and reflective as the other essays. There was too much emphasis on detail and action in the two, often technical details and actions, and not enough discussion of psychological meaning of the otherwise striking events described there – Wolff enduring a life-threatening surgery and his family’s embarkment on a long sail together, something potentially very testing. But overall I’m so glad I read this book, it’s so precious in the face of how cautious and moralistic so much of contemporary literature is.
November 17, 2013
A Day at the Beach by Geoffrey Wolff. This book of autobiographical essays was unavailable until Ann Patchett helped to convince Random House to republish it. The new paperback version was published in November 2013. Ann Patchett says it all: "It’s just an incredible book. It’s so much better than anything else, in large part because Geoffrey’s a fantastic writer and a great thinker, but he also just had a much more interesting life. He lived in Egypt and rode motorcycles, and smoked hash, and hung out with spies, and sailed the open seas, and climbed mountains, and he had an amazing life -- he has an amazing life, he’s not dead!” It is an amazing book. If you ever aspire to retire, sell everything and sail around the world, read this book first. Enjoy!
July 29, 2017
This book of autobiographical essays fills in some blanks and carries on where The Duke of Deception leaves off. Like in TDOD, we are exposed to the antics and colorful world of the family Wolff. Geoffrey doesn't seem to hold anything back when describing his own short comings. One thing that rings true always is the closeness and love he has for his wife and two sons.
Of the ten essays, my favorites were the hard hitting "A Day at the Beach" and "Waterway".
If you have read TDOD and enjoyed it, I do recommend you follow it up with this companion.
Of the ten essays, my favorites were the hard hitting "A Day at the Beach" and "Waterway".
If you have read TDOD and enjoyed it, I do recommend you follow it up with this companion.
August 11, 2019
I went in reading this book with so much excitement, that was 2 months ago. A collection of short essays that comprise Geoffrey's life. I felt frustrated. I couldn't understand most of the pieces because the flow was distracted. Out of the 9 essays I liked on 3. The book dragged out so much and in all honesty we could have done without some of the details. I wouldn't say it is a bad book, I just couldn't get in to it.
August 18, 2016
Consensus of book group was that the author too full of himself. Some essays were better than others. I'm putting this on the boat shelf because of the last, and longest, essay, about a sailing trip from the Bahamas to Rhode Island with his wife and then son.
December 9, 2013
Beautiful writing. I liked the shorter stories best. The longer ones were too long for my taste.
December 13, 2025
Like some other reviewers, this book came to my notice thanks to Ann Patchett's punting of it. It is a mixed bag and perhaps a tad overwritten, however much one must admire Geoffrey Wolff's brilliant prose. I was a little put off by the many references to unfamiliar places on the eastern seaboard of the USA, the setting for one of two particularly long essays in this collection. It became a little tiresome for me, a non-American, to juggle all the place names to get at the themes and focus 'between the lines.' And these were: his love for his family, adventure, his self deprecating wit, especially in relation to his wife Priscilla. In short, a certain wisdom comes through. I have read two of Ann Patchett's non-fiction short stories; give me one of those any day, there is a less 'cluttered' feel to her engaging style. But to give G Wolff his due, perhaps I'll enjoy 'Duke of Deception' more? Only just 4/5
December 13, 2017
I enjoy the Wolf brothers work. I did not especially like the first half of this book however. I guess I'm tired of reading about the the drunken of brilliant young men. acting out in foreign countries
But I enjoyed the second half and his sailboating days especially the folks met along the way
December 19, 2017
Ann Patchett recommends this book to everyone in her shop. His writing is gorgeous, but I could have done without the 100 page essay on traveling by boat.
Read
February 19, 2022It didn't come in large print or audio. Came recommended by Ann Patchett but I returned it.
November 15, 2013
Geoffrey Wolff’s second memoir, A Day at the Beach: Recollections, is a well-written and smart reflection of a man in the terminal days of his “late middle age.” Actually, unlike his first memoir The Duke of Deception, a book more akin to a biography of his infamous father: The Duke, this book is a series of nine essays describing life-episodes starting as early as his college days and ending with a novella-length description of sailing with his wife and grown sons.
The Duke of Deception was written with a tone of restraint; for the most part the author allowed a simple recitation of the facts to convey meaning. In this effort Wolff abandons any appearance of neutral restraint. A Day at the Beach has a far different tone. At times intelligent and witty, Wolff does become snide and hectoring, offering the tone of an abrasive but very bright smart-ass. However, what ties these two memoirs together is the looming and overshadowing presence of “The Duke.”
Memoirs often allow the reader to hear alternating voices. The voice relating the events as seen by a much younger author alternates or is followed by a more mature reflective voice delivering to the reader a portion of understanding or interpretation, a kind of wisdom derived from distance or time. The essay—a term derived from the French essai meaning “a trial” and the Latin exagium translated “to weigh”—often suggests the author, far from understanding, writes in a desperate attempt to understand. It was Montagne who suggested, “I write so that I know what I think.”
In A Day at the Beach Wolff’s essays attempt to make sense of his own life’s many surprising twists and turns, a journey irrevocably tied to a fantastical con-man father. The Duke, so big a hero to his son growing up and then an object of revulsion in the young man first learning his father wasn’t what he had believed, was also the conundrum who died alone in a mental institution, penniless and friendless. After being raised by a father with such an aversion to truth-telling and who raised false personas to a high art, is it any wonder Wolff struggled throughout his life and on the page to know just what could be believed and who could be trusted.
Because The Duke plays such a large role in Wolff’s life there is a significant amount of over-lap with his earlier memoir. In addition, as with all essay/ memoirs, at times there is a lack of connection between the parts. That is, the stand-alone character of each essay, at times engenders confusion concerning just how the essays tie together or where the overall arc of the work might be headed. This lack of continuity is most evident with the last, and longest, essay: “Waterway.”
The Duke has haunted the first eight essays only to disappear in this last essay. It may well be the author intends a simple allegory. That is, just as Wolff negotiates the treacherous passage from Bermuda to the US, we are only to understand he has also made a "home port" with his wife and sons. However, given the smart writing that proceeded this last essay, I think this is too simplistic for this author. The problem lays elsewhere.
I don’t doubt Wolff has reached a kind of home port resolution. The problem: I was left not really understanding why. To be clear, I do not expect Wolff to have the book end with all relationships and questions tied up with a trite synthesizing bow. I also understand our modern suspicion (And I assume Wolff's as well) concerning happy endings, a concern reflecting the unspoken presupposition that all happy endings are, by definition, infected with sentimentality—a kind of prose believed to be the most evil force in contemporary writing.
However, I think the problem actually reflects a problem with the author’s choice of form. By choosing the essay the reader expects to have been offered more speculation as to why the same boy who was brought-up by a nearly amoral con-man successfully negotiated his own propensity for falsity and alcohol. Why as a mature man he achieved a lasting even enduring marriage and produced children who as adults now offer him a measure of respect. Surely by all contemporary standards this constitutes at least a qualified success, even a life containing a measure of satisfaction and accomplishment.
None of us can look back upon our life’s successes or failures and explain the reasons with certainty. However, the essay form demands the writer share the thinking journey. The reader must see the twists, false starts, dead-ends, and mystery of the author’s thinking as he or she attempts to find a degree of understanding.
In this last aspect, I find A Day at the Beach: Recollection—an otherwise extremely entertaining and well-crafted book— wanting and therefore cannot award it a top rating.
The Duke of Deception was written with a tone of restraint; for the most part the author allowed a simple recitation of the facts to convey meaning. In this effort Wolff abandons any appearance of neutral restraint. A Day at the Beach has a far different tone. At times intelligent and witty, Wolff does become snide and hectoring, offering the tone of an abrasive but very bright smart-ass. However, what ties these two memoirs together is the looming and overshadowing presence of “The Duke.”
Memoirs often allow the reader to hear alternating voices. The voice relating the events as seen by a much younger author alternates or is followed by a more mature reflective voice delivering to the reader a portion of understanding or interpretation, a kind of wisdom derived from distance or time. The essay—a term derived from the French essai meaning “a trial” and the Latin exagium translated “to weigh”—often suggests the author, far from understanding, writes in a desperate attempt to understand. It was Montagne who suggested, “I write so that I know what I think.”
In A Day at the Beach Wolff’s essays attempt to make sense of his own life’s many surprising twists and turns, a journey irrevocably tied to a fantastical con-man father. The Duke, so big a hero to his son growing up and then an object of revulsion in the young man first learning his father wasn’t what he had believed, was also the conundrum who died alone in a mental institution, penniless and friendless. After being raised by a father with such an aversion to truth-telling and who raised false personas to a high art, is it any wonder Wolff struggled throughout his life and on the page to know just what could be believed and who could be trusted.
Because The Duke plays such a large role in Wolff’s life there is a significant amount of over-lap with his earlier memoir. In addition, as with all essay/ memoirs, at times there is a lack of connection between the parts. That is, the stand-alone character of each essay, at times engenders confusion concerning just how the essays tie together or where the overall arc of the work might be headed. This lack of continuity is most evident with the last, and longest, essay: “Waterway.”
The Duke has haunted the first eight essays only to disappear in this last essay. It may well be the author intends a simple allegory. That is, just as Wolff negotiates the treacherous passage from Bermuda to the US, we are only to understand he has also made a "home port" with his wife and sons. However, given the smart writing that proceeded this last essay, I think this is too simplistic for this author. The problem lays elsewhere.
I don’t doubt Wolff has reached a kind of home port resolution. The problem: I was left not really understanding why. To be clear, I do not expect Wolff to have the book end with all relationships and questions tied up with a trite synthesizing bow. I also understand our modern suspicion (And I assume Wolff's as well) concerning happy endings, a concern reflecting the unspoken presupposition that all happy endings are, by definition, infected with sentimentality—a kind of prose believed to be the most evil force in contemporary writing.
However, I think the problem actually reflects a problem with the author’s choice of form. By choosing the essay the reader expects to have been offered more speculation as to why the same boy who was brought-up by a nearly amoral con-man successfully negotiated his own propensity for falsity and alcohol. Why as a mature man he achieved a lasting even enduring marriage and produced children who as adults now offer him a measure of respect. Surely by all contemporary standards this constitutes at least a qualified success, even a life containing a measure of satisfaction and accomplishment.
None of us can look back upon our life’s successes or failures and explain the reasons with certainty. However, the essay form demands the writer share the thinking journey. The reader must see the twists, false starts, dead-ends, and mystery of the author’s thinking as he or she attempts to find a degree of understanding.
In this last aspect, I find A Day at the Beach: Recollection—an otherwise extremely entertaining and well-crafted book— wanting and therefore cannot award it a top rating.
April 23, 2014
I’m not sure what it is exactly that Ann Patchett finds so wonderful about this book. The essay "Apprentice" dazzled me (but then it was written to dazzle, my least favorite quality in writing), especially the following quotes:
“I know that the self can be too easy a subject, that candor without the restraint of reticence is so much cheap talk. I know that it’s as ugly a lie to be disarmingly hard on oneself as to be charmingly easy.“
But I was not dazzled by the remainder of the book, which I just barely skimmed, not able to find anything as interesting as the sections that deal with his brother, Tobias Wolff—the superior writer--or his father, a far more interesting character and the subject of The Duke of Deception, which I enjoyed when I read it years ago. There is a brief appearance in the essay about Istanbul when James Baldwin makes a memorable appearance, but once he departs he takes the liveliness with him. So many of these essays feel forced, and the writing labored, as if Wolff is determined to prove, over and over again, how well he can write. I get the feeling that Geoffrey has not completely left behind the pedantic would-be tutor of his younger brother Toby, even after all these years.
“I know that the self can be too easy a subject, that candor without the restraint of reticence is so much cheap talk. I know that it’s as ugly a lie to be disarmingly hard on oneself as to be charmingly easy.“
But I was not dazzled by the remainder of the book, which I just barely skimmed, not able to find anything as interesting as the sections that deal with his brother, Tobias Wolff—the superior writer--or his father, a far more interesting character and the subject of The Duke of Deception, which I enjoyed when I read it years ago. There is a brief appearance in the essay about Istanbul when James Baldwin makes a memorable appearance, but once he departs he takes the liveliness with him. So many of these essays feel forced, and the writing labored, as if Wolff is determined to prove, over and over again, how well he can write. I get the feeling that Geoffrey has not completely left behind the pedantic would-be tutor of his younger brother Toby, even after all these years.
March 5, 2016
After 150 pages I had to admit that I wasn't enjoying anything about this book, except the cover. In particular I disliked the author, or at least the way he chose to portray himself. Off to the Oxfam bookshop with you.
March 10, 2017
Geoffrey is the older but less well known brother of Tobias. He is also a very fine writer. These 'recollections' are entertaining and insightful snippets of his life, shot through with a dry sense of humour and gentle self mockery.
January 28, 2014
Will post review once it posts at place of origin!
September 7, 2016
Godawful. Do not waste your time.
February 26, 2023
I tend to forget that I like personal essays/memoirs. But I do. These were funny, and Geoffrey Wolff can turn a mean phrase.
January 15, 2015
This collection of personal essays is so exact and charming and insightful and funny and heartbreaking. The title essay is golden. I love Geoffrey Wolff!
January 20, 2016
Terrific writing--great stories, but there is an egotistical (maybe Hemingwayesque?) undercurrent in Wolff's memoir that puts me off. Makes me suspect that I wouldn't like him very much if I met him.
Want to read
January 26, 2016Ann Patchett recommends
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