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The Duke Of Deception: Memories of my father
Duke Wolff was a flawless specimen of the American clubman -- a product of Yale and the OSS, a one-time fighter pilot turned aviation engineer. Duke Wolff was a failure who flunked out of a series of undistinguished schools, was passed up for military service, and supported himself with desperately improvised scams, exploiting employers, wives, and, finally, his own son.
In The Duke of Deception, Geoffrey Wolff unravels the enigma of this Gatsbyesque figure, a bad man who somehow was also a very good father, an inveterate liar who falsified everything but love.
In The Duke of Deception, Geoffrey Wolff unravels the enigma of this Gatsbyesque figure, a bad man who somehow was also a very good father, an inveterate liar who falsified everything but love.
275 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1979
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October 26, 2012
The four best memoirs I have ever read, and I have read too many, are Frank McCort’s, Angela’s Ashes, “Tobias Wolff’s, “This Boy’s Life,” Geoffrey Wolff’s, “The Duke of Deception,” and Jeanette Walls, “The Glass Castle.”
These books are similar in describing horrendous childhood’s of upheaval and instability, complicated by mentally ill, vagabond, eccentric parents, and a sort of lower middle class poverty. (I know that’s an oxymoron, read the books and you’ll understand). But the similarities go much further and deeper. Each author is a brilliant writer with an uncanny ability to recount his or her traumatic childhoods without self-pity. They don’t seem to hold resentment towards their incompetent parents. In fact they are able to recognize the strengths in their parent’s oddity and the positive aspects of their personalities. They find in their chaotic childhood experience, grist for creative tour-de-forces, in each of these four memoirs.
Please see prior review of “Glass Castle”. I will review “Angela’s Ashes,” soon.
Tobias and Geoffrey Wolff are brothers. Geoffrey is eight years older than Tobias. When their parents divorce, Geoffrey heads off to live with his father and Tobias goes with his mother.
Arthur Wolff was a Yalie, fighter pilot, and ersatz aviation engineer, who was also a vagabond, con-man, flim-flam-man, forger and alcoholic. In the “”The Duke of Deception,” Geoffrey describes his chaotic life with his crazy father who bilks and cons everyone he meets, including friends, associates, wives, and Geoffrey himself. They move from place to place in continuous flight from debtors and jail. (They end up in La Jolla, where I was born and living at the time, with my father named Arthur and brother named Jeffrey.) Arthur forges credentials and lands a job as an aeronautical engineer at General Dynamics, where my friends parents worked at the time. Eventually Arthur is committed to a mental hospital and Geoffrey heads off to Princeton.
Geoffrey’s descriptions of his father are brilliantly nuanced, remarkably sympathetic, and psychologically insightful. He says for example, ”As I dislike him more and more. I become more and more like him. I felt trapped.” This is a remarkable statement. As a therapist, one of the most difficult things to get across to people is the concept that without significant insight and effort, one tends to possess the very aspects of their own parents that they most despise. Geoffrey masters this in three short sentences.
Tobias Wolff’s book starts in 1955 with ten year old Tobias, fleeing in a Nash Rambler that was continuously boiling over, with his mother, who was leaving one of a series of continuously violent relationships. They were driving from Florida to Utah and had broken down once again on the top of the Continental Divide, when a semi looses it’s brakes, screams it’s air horn in one long wail, and flies off the divide with Tobias and his mother watching. Tobias’s mother was moving to Florida to strike it rich mining uranium.
So starts Tobias’s memoir. Honestly, I don’t understand the appeal of fiction as much anymore, when non-fiction is so much weirder, more incredible, and far more interesting. Tobias eventually ends up living in a town called Concrete (Washington) with a concrete, blockhead of a stepfather who was a sadistic, martinet. Eventually he escapes all this chaos into the relatively more predictable Vietnam War and training in the special forces. (He wrote a great book about his tour of duty entitled, “In the Pharaoh’s Army: Memoirs of the Lost War.)
Tobias and Geoffrey meet up once, after a six-year separation in La Jolla, just before Geoffrey leaves for Princeton, after their father is institutionalized. Tobias comes out by bus. Geoffrey spends the summer writing technical manuals for General Dynamic’s under his father’s name, while assigning Tobias daily reading requirements of all the Greek tragedies. I was younger at this time swimming at Windansea, right next to where they lived.
Geoffrey eventually goes on to receive his Ph.D. in literature, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and was a Professor of Literature at University of California Irvine. He has published numerous highly acclaimed books. He had two sons and married a Clinical Social Worker. (I am a Clinical Social Worker. Weird coincidences). Tobias studied at Oxford, received his Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at Stanford and is a Professor of Creative Writing at Stanford. He also has written many highly acclaimed books. He is married and has three children. A movie was made of the book, “This Boy’s Life,” starring Leonardo What’s His Name. Their mother eventually became President of the League of Women Voters. Truth is stranger than fiction.
The relationship between the brothers remained close and mutually supportive since their time together in La Jolla. Both are considered two of America’s finest contemporary writers.
It is remarkable and comforting to realize that all four of these authors overcame childhood’s of shocking hardship and trauma, and used their experiences to write creative, beautiful, and inspiring memoirs.
Highly recommend all four of these books. Recommend you read them in chronological order starting with “Angela’s Ashes,” then “The Duke of Deception,” “This Boys Life,” and “The Glass Castle.” (Toss in Pharaoh’s Army and you’ll be glad you did!)
Happy Reading!
These books are similar in describing horrendous childhood’s of upheaval and instability, complicated by mentally ill, vagabond, eccentric parents, and a sort of lower middle class poverty. (I know that’s an oxymoron, read the books and you’ll understand). But the similarities go much further and deeper. Each author is a brilliant writer with an uncanny ability to recount his or her traumatic childhoods without self-pity. They don’t seem to hold resentment towards their incompetent parents. In fact they are able to recognize the strengths in their parent’s oddity and the positive aspects of their personalities. They find in their chaotic childhood experience, grist for creative tour-de-forces, in each of these four memoirs.
Please see prior review of “Glass Castle”. I will review “Angela’s Ashes,” soon.
Tobias and Geoffrey Wolff are brothers. Geoffrey is eight years older than Tobias. When their parents divorce, Geoffrey heads off to live with his father and Tobias goes with his mother.
Arthur Wolff was a Yalie, fighter pilot, and ersatz aviation engineer, who was also a vagabond, con-man, flim-flam-man, forger and alcoholic. In the “”The Duke of Deception,” Geoffrey describes his chaotic life with his crazy father who bilks and cons everyone he meets, including friends, associates, wives, and Geoffrey himself. They move from place to place in continuous flight from debtors and jail. (They end up in La Jolla, where I was born and living at the time, with my father named Arthur and brother named Jeffrey.) Arthur forges credentials and lands a job as an aeronautical engineer at General Dynamics, where my friends parents worked at the time. Eventually Arthur is committed to a mental hospital and Geoffrey heads off to Princeton.
Geoffrey’s descriptions of his father are brilliantly nuanced, remarkably sympathetic, and psychologically insightful. He says for example, ”As I dislike him more and more. I become more and more like him. I felt trapped.” This is a remarkable statement. As a therapist, one of the most difficult things to get across to people is the concept that without significant insight and effort, one tends to possess the very aspects of their own parents that they most despise. Geoffrey masters this in three short sentences.
Tobias Wolff’s book starts in 1955 with ten year old Tobias, fleeing in a Nash Rambler that was continuously boiling over, with his mother, who was leaving one of a series of continuously violent relationships. They were driving from Florida to Utah and had broken down once again on the top of the Continental Divide, when a semi looses it’s brakes, screams it’s air horn in one long wail, and flies off the divide with Tobias and his mother watching. Tobias’s mother was moving to Florida to strike it rich mining uranium.
So starts Tobias’s memoir. Honestly, I don’t understand the appeal of fiction as much anymore, when non-fiction is so much weirder, more incredible, and far more interesting. Tobias eventually ends up living in a town called Concrete (Washington) with a concrete, blockhead of a stepfather who was a sadistic, martinet. Eventually he escapes all this chaos into the relatively more predictable Vietnam War and training in the special forces. (He wrote a great book about his tour of duty entitled, “In the Pharaoh’s Army: Memoirs of the Lost War.)
Tobias and Geoffrey meet up once, after a six-year separation in La Jolla, just before Geoffrey leaves for Princeton, after their father is institutionalized. Tobias comes out by bus. Geoffrey spends the summer writing technical manuals for General Dynamic’s under his father’s name, while assigning Tobias daily reading requirements of all the Greek tragedies. I was younger at this time swimming at Windansea, right next to where they lived.
Geoffrey eventually goes on to receive his Ph.D. in literature, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and was a Professor of Literature at University of California Irvine. He has published numerous highly acclaimed books. He had two sons and married a Clinical Social Worker. (I am a Clinical Social Worker. Weird coincidences). Tobias studied at Oxford, received his Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at Stanford and is a Professor of Creative Writing at Stanford. He also has written many highly acclaimed books. He is married and has three children. A movie was made of the book, “This Boy’s Life,” starring Leonardo What’s His Name. Their mother eventually became President of the League of Women Voters. Truth is stranger than fiction.
The relationship between the brothers remained close and mutually supportive since their time together in La Jolla. Both are considered two of America’s finest contemporary writers.
It is remarkable and comforting to realize that all four of these authors overcame childhood’s of shocking hardship and trauma, and used their experiences to write creative, beautiful, and inspiring memoirs.
Highly recommend all four of these books. Recommend you read them in chronological order starting with “Angela’s Ashes,” then “The Duke of Deception,” “This Boys Life,” and “The Glass Castle.” (Toss in Pharaoh’s Army and you’ll be glad you did!)
Happy Reading!
November 4, 2014
I am reading or re-reading a lot of father-son books I have had on my shelf for a long time, in part because I am working on a father-son project of my own. But my relationship with my father was good; why is it I keep reading these sad/tragic stories of compulsive liar fathers by their damaged kids? Mary Karr's The Liars Club, Laurie Sandell's The Imposter Syndrome, Paul Auster's The Invention of Solitude, so many others, and just recently, This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff (one of my favorite writers) and now Woolf's brother's memoir, The Duke of Deception. I guess the stories are fascinating, sure, but why is it we are so fascinated, and even somewhat attracted to scam or film flam or con artists, impostors, liars? I'm not sure. Maybe that's just it, that they make for a good story. Or maybe a lot of people have "troubled" (or just plain bad) fathers.
Part of my attraction might be this: my wife hates The Great Gatsby because she finds him and the whole cast of rich and spooled characters despicable. But I care for Gatsby, and don't think of him as merely pathetic. He strives, he goes for even a very flawed American Dream of material worth, and I hate that, but there's something in the striving that I admire. I love The Great Gatsby as one of the Great American Novels. And some reviews speak of Duke as Gatsby-like, and in his having to have the best of everything, I can see it. But I never come to see him in the same light. Maybe Geoffrey is not as believable as a kind of Nick Carraway as I'd like (ironically, as Nick from Gatsby is fictional, and Geoffrey is clearly writing a memoir); he's too deeply flawed himself. (But this would be a good book to read with Gatsby, though! Both are pretenders, liars.)
When the Duke (Arthur) and Rosemary divorce, due to the Duke's crazy lying tragic-comic financial disasters, Duke gets Geoff and Rosemary gets Toby. Both have chaotic tales of family dysfunction. Toby gets mean and violently psychotic step-Dads and very little money as her Mom makes bad choice after bad choice in men, and Geoff gets outrageous dad Duke who makes terrible life choices in general. The brothers did not see each other for many years, though they get together in each other's books near the end. The two memoirs have in common Duke and Mom, but not as much Dad in Toby's, not as much Mom in Geoff's, obviously. They both identify Mom as nicer but also making wild choices, and neither are really in love with the crazy Duke. Dad is nailed as compulsive liar in both.
Toby's memoir is in my opinion much better, as it puts you in the room, with some painful detail,. He's just a better writer in general, and makes of himself a more sympathetic character. We don't get the complete arc and all the details of his life; he evokes the insanity of his broken life, always with some humor and self-deprecation. Geoff tells a more conventional memoir, documenting with great detail the fake resumes and application letters and unpaid bills and opulent lifestyle that makes for a foundation of sand, but it's just less interesting to me. Too many details about too much misery. All right already, I say later when reading the book, as the Duke's lies finally really catch up with him.
One of the interesting things about this book is that Geoff essentially becomes the arrogant, greedy asshole that was the Duke. A player that everyone liked; Geoff makes it clear he learned how to be the Duke, though he also is liked far less, less likable. At one point when the Duke is really in decline Geoff says that the Duke watched television every night as HE, Geoff, wrote a novel! He REALLY went to Princeton, instead of the Yale lie his Dad told! Good for you, Geoffrey boy! Then, when his Dad is really out of it, he sends Daddy dearest his novel Bad Debts that essentially excoriates the Duke, and wonders why it is Dad never responds! The last communication with his Dad is to send him this, with a letter hoping he doesn't take it too hard! And when the Duke dies, and Geoffrey hears about it, his first reaction is "That's good;" okay, so we don't love the Duke, but he had really taken care of his son, for the most part. You almost sympathize with the Duke in the end.
Geoff sums Duke up deftly, after almost three hundred pages of misery: "He was all lies and love." In this memoir Geoff finally comes to terms with the fact that he loved his father and his father loved him, and raised him with the intention of raising an honest, upright citizen, but the Duke's own modeling unfortunately turned out to be Geoffrey's greater teacher. We are supposed to be moved by the sight of Geoffrey getting into bed with his sleeping son and cuddling him, at the end of the book, but I'm not convinced he is now going to be this great Dad, this wonderful person.
Geoffrey's been an asshole throughout his whole memoir, a privileged person who, like his Dad, largely faked his way through life, caring more about material possessions than people, and pretending to the people who catch him in the act that he has "learned" (vs. the Duke who says, "never explain, never apologize"). If I got a great sense he had really seen himself all the way through in the way he claims to really see his flawed Dad, I might be more sympathetic. Still, it is quite a story, this two book set of memoirs, and this is memorable, and really well written in parts, just not as artfully written or as insightful as Toby's.
Part of my attraction might be this: my wife hates The Great Gatsby because she finds him and the whole cast of rich and spooled characters despicable. But I care for Gatsby, and don't think of him as merely pathetic. He strives, he goes for even a very flawed American Dream of material worth, and I hate that, but there's something in the striving that I admire. I love The Great Gatsby as one of the Great American Novels. And some reviews speak of Duke as Gatsby-like, and in his having to have the best of everything, I can see it. But I never come to see him in the same light. Maybe Geoffrey is not as believable as a kind of Nick Carraway as I'd like (ironically, as Nick from Gatsby is fictional, and Geoffrey is clearly writing a memoir); he's too deeply flawed himself. (But this would be a good book to read with Gatsby, though! Both are pretenders, liars.)
When the Duke (Arthur) and Rosemary divorce, due to the Duke's crazy lying tragic-comic financial disasters, Duke gets Geoff and Rosemary gets Toby. Both have chaotic tales of family dysfunction. Toby gets mean and violently psychotic step-Dads and very little money as her Mom makes bad choice after bad choice in men, and Geoff gets outrageous dad Duke who makes terrible life choices in general. The brothers did not see each other for many years, though they get together in each other's books near the end. The two memoirs have in common Duke and Mom, but not as much Dad in Toby's, not as much Mom in Geoff's, obviously. They both identify Mom as nicer but also making wild choices, and neither are really in love with the crazy Duke. Dad is nailed as compulsive liar in both.
Toby's memoir is in my opinion much better, as it puts you in the room, with some painful detail,. He's just a better writer in general, and makes of himself a more sympathetic character. We don't get the complete arc and all the details of his life; he evokes the insanity of his broken life, always with some humor and self-deprecation. Geoff tells a more conventional memoir, documenting with great detail the fake resumes and application letters and unpaid bills and opulent lifestyle that makes for a foundation of sand, but it's just less interesting to me. Too many details about too much misery. All right already, I say later when reading the book, as the Duke's lies finally really catch up with him.
One of the interesting things about this book is that Geoff essentially becomes the arrogant, greedy asshole that was the Duke. A player that everyone liked; Geoff makes it clear he learned how to be the Duke, though he also is liked far less, less likable. At one point when the Duke is really in decline Geoff says that the Duke watched television every night as HE, Geoff, wrote a novel! He REALLY went to Princeton, instead of the Yale lie his Dad told! Good for you, Geoffrey boy! Then, when his Dad is really out of it, he sends Daddy dearest his novel Bad Debts that essentially excoriates the Duke, and wonders why it is Dad never responds! The last communication with his Dad is to send him this, with a letter hoping he doesn't take it too hard! And when the Duke dies, and Geoffrey hears about it, his first reaction is "That's good;" okay, so we don't love the Duke, but he had really taken care of his son, for the most part. You almost sympathize with the Duke in the end.
Geoff sums Duke up deftly, after almost three hundred pages of misery: "He was all lies and love." In this memoir Geoff finally comes to terms with the fact that he loved his father and his father loved him, and raised him with the intention of raising an honest, upright citizen, but the Duke's own modeling unfortunately turned out to be Geoffrey's greater teacher. We are supposed to be moved by the sight of Geoffrey getting into bed with his sleeping son and cuddling him, at the end of the book, but I'm not convinced he is now going to be this great Dad, this wonderful person.
Geoffrey's been an asshole throughout his whole memoir, a privileged person who, like his Dad, largely faked his way through life, caring more about material possessions than people, and pretending to the people who catch him in the act that he has "learned" (vs. the Duke who says, "never explain, never apologize"). If I got a great sense he had really seen himself all the way through in the way he claims to really see his flawed Dad, I might be more sympathetic. Still, it is quite a story, this two book set of memoirs, and this is memorable, and really well written in parts, just not as artfully written or as insightful as Toby's.
March 21, 2008
When their parents divorced, brothers Geoffrey and Tobias Wolff each went with one parent -- Tobias with their mother (famously portrayed in the book and movie "This Boy's Life") and older brother Geoffrey with their father. More people know Tobias' story; lesser known is the odyssey Geoffrey describes in living with their father. Turns out the college degrees and family pedigree of which Dad was so proud were all lies. In fact, as the title indicates, just about everything in his life is a lie. From one swindle to another, Geoffrey moves about the country with his father. Eventually, though, the bad checks and phony stories of the father become a burden for the son. It's a riveting yet heartbreaking story.
If you read "The Duke of Deception," plan on going immediately from it to "This Boy's Life." That two brothers were leading these lives simultaneously -- one suffering the abuse of the mother's psychotic husband, the other coming to grips with a sociopathic father -- is mind boggling.
And here's another suggestion: After you read those two, go straight to Tobias Wolff's Vietnam memoir, "In Pharaoh's Army." Geoffrey and their father make an appearance toward the end. That's not a spoiler, because if you read the other two books, you will know that there has to be some kind of encounter on Tobias' return from Vietnam.
If you read "The Duke of Deception," plan on going immediately from it to "This Boy's Life." That two brothers were leading these lives simultaneously -- one suffering the abuse of the mother's psychotic husband, the other coming to grips with a sociopathic father -- is mind boggling.
And here's another suggestion: After you read those two, go straight to Tobias Wolff's Vietnam memoir, "In Pharaoh's Army." Geoffrey and their father make an appearance toward the end. That's not a spoiler, because if you read the other two books, you will know that there has to be some kind of encounter on Tobias' return from Vietnam.
September 26, 2017
Why do I enjoy memoirs so? In the first place I think it's to do with just wanting a peek inside the private lives of others, it's noisiness. Second, I want to find out more abut people, what makes them tick, and third I want to find out more about my own and my family's inner workings. By reading about others, I learn more about myself or something like that.
This was an excellent one, it's so honest and he really did get a lot of love from his father, even though he was such a rotter. Like he says his father was a deceptive man. I only wish that the elder Wolff had extended his largess to his younger son, who was just lost. When his father died, the author said, "Thank God." which sounds cruel, but his father put him and his family through torment.
This was an excellent one, it's so honest and he really did get a lot of love from his father, even though he was such a rotter. Like he says his father was a deceptive man. I only wish that the elder Wolff had extended his largess to his younger son, who was just lost. When his father died, the author said, "Thank God." which sounds cruel, but his father put him and his family through torment.
January 13, 2012
I had to read this for my advanced nonfiction writing class, and it was extremely difficult to read through and find something positive. So instead, I’ve resorted to the analytical in hopes that it can enlighten future readers of the content.
Geoffrey Wolff entangles the reader in a long, arduous explanation for why he is thankful his father died. As a reader, I felt the memoir was too long, too detailed with explanations, and I found myself focusing on mental and behavioral issues Duke and Geoffrey shared. Whether or not I focused on the wrong details, it helped to enlighten the link between father and son and the excuse for why he was so thankful over the death of his father.
What every person has in common is a connection with another human being, blood relation or not. We are naturally curious about how another lives and what different facets in his or her life are like. How does one act around friends? Family? Strangers? While I enjoyed reading about these two men, I could not relate to them. Trust and honesty is a foundation in my life, and it seemed the only person in this memoir who I could trust to be honest was Geoffrey’s mother. She was a woman stuck in a sad situation, and wanted to make the best of what she had.
Duke drilled Geoffrey to tell the truth, to be proud of who he is, and yet Geoffrey lied as much as Duke. These two constantly tried to cover up their individual pasts and create newer, brighter histories for their identities. They lived in a world of confusion, and thrived off the snowballing of the tales. This probably explains why Geoffrey gave detailed accounts the various women who would walk in and out of his life. He was desperate for something to cling to that was solid, stable, and loving. If a girl showed any interest in him, he would leap at the idea and make advances far beyond his understanding and control to ensnare her. Love was his excuse to leave this world of deception.
The prologue and epilogue bookend the memoir of “things.” Things that Duke collected, enjoyed, stole, bartered, and in turn shared with his son and his fascination of material items. We learn of the squalor Duke died in, his loss of things. This loss, I think, opened up the door to the truth Geoffrey so desperately wanted.
Geoffrey Wolff entangles the reader in a long, arduous explanation for why he is thankful his father died. As a reader, I felt the memoir was too long, too detailed with explanations, and I found myself focusing on mental and behavioral issues Duke and Geoffrey shared. Whether or not I focused on the wrong details, it helped to enlighten the link between father and son and the excuse for why he was so thankful over the death of his father.
What every person has in common is a connection with another human being, blood relation or not. We are naturally curious about how another lives and what different facets in his or her life are like. How does one act around friends? Family? Strangers? While I enjoyed reading about these two men, I could not relate to them. Trust and honesty is a foundation in my life, and it seemed the only person in this memoir who I could trust to be honest was Geoffrey’s mother. She was a woman stuck in a sad situation, and wanted to make the best of what she had.
Duke drilled Geoffrey to tell the truth, to be proud of who he is, and yet Geoffrey lied as much as Duke. These two constantly tried to cover up their individual pasts and create newer, brighter histories for their identities. They lived in a world of confusion, and thrived off the snowballing of the tales. This probably explains why Geoffrey gave detailed accounts the various women who would walk in and out of his life. He was desperate for something to cling to that was solid, stable, and loving. If a girl showed any interest in him, he would leap at the idea and make advances far beyond his understanding and control to ensnare her. Love was his excuse to leave this world of deception.
The prologue and epilogue bookend the memoir of “things.” Things that Duke collected, enjoyed, stole, bartered, and in turn shared with his son and his fascination of material items. We learn of the squalor Duke died in, his loss of things. This loss, I think, opened up the door to the truth Geoffrey so desperately wanted.
July 10, 2017
I guess maybe it's because I'm such a straight arrow that I find people like Arthur "Duke" Wolff so interesting. The idea of re-inventing yourself, moving from town to town, living on the edge one step ahead of the law........I can't imagine that life. This man was a complete fraud. He falsified everything, even his own mother wasn't sure whether or not he had gone to Yale. And he wasn't without charm and other skills. He managed to convince employers that he was an engineer and was hired to modify airplanes during wartime, and even after he was found out was still hired by other companies because he was so good at what he did.
After a divorce, he got custody of Geoffrey and younger son Toby stayed with his mom. Each boy had a difficult childhood, yet the two somehow managed to become highly educated and both became authors and educators. Both having written their memoirs showing the different paths their parent's divorce took them on. The two stories do overlap a bit, but for the most part were very separate.
Both books are excellent.
After a divorce, he got custody of Geoffrey and younger son Toby stayed with his mom. Each boy had a difficult childhood, yet the two somehow managed to become highly educated and both became authors and educators. Both having written their memoirs showing the different paths their parent's divorce took them on. The two stories do overlap a bit, but for the most part were very separate.
Both books are excellent.
April 6, 2011
While his brother Toby's memoir was emotional and moving, his older brother remains intellectually distant and mordantly ironic, even angier than Toby, yet it shed s an empathetic light on Toby's problems. What I like was that Goeffrey allows the reader to gradually realize that he was becoming the dopopleganger of his father but finally matures, admits this, and changes his life for the better. Although sometimes disconnectedly cerebral, Geoffrey does deliver the emotional climax at the tragic ending. Pain, whether derrived from war or family discord, often creates the extreme conditions that produce accomplished writing.
February 10, 2025
I’m a sucker for memoirs about family dysfunction and this one does not disappoint: the author’s father is a true shyster. Wolff’s memoir is also reflective of an earlier chapter in American writing and publishing. It made for a nice shift away from the modern lit I’ve been absorbed by recently.
Read
April 28, 2011This book -- often beautiful in its prose, often unpleasant in its subject matter -- troubles me. It provided a unique counterpoint: it includes a new perspective on one of my favorite memoirs, the author's brother Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life (1989). One of the best elements of that book was its willingness not to moralize, to trust that we readers would see the irony develop, understand the unreliable characters' unreliability, and internalize a healthy judgment of the immorality we were observing.
This book, focused more on a different family dynamic within the same family, I found much more unsettling. On the one hand, there were the human flaws: Tobias and Geoffrey Wolff's father, Arthur "Duke" Wolff, seems to have passed them to his boys as if by blood, although it's clear that nurture also played a role. On the other hand, there was love: Geoffrey Wolff perceived it -- at least occasionally -- through the haze of misbehavior and irresponsibility that his father spewed out of a life ill-lived (but oh-so-robustly so!). It was beyond odd to see the same bad behavior repeated across the family, even as they lived apart. The promises to change, unfulfilled; the pretensions and delusions; the reactions to bad parenting, at least some of which are understandable if not warranted; the fraudulent application to private schools; the prodigious talents mixed sourly with flawed character. The things that Tobias Wolff's book somehow made approachable and moral even in their wrongness are very similar to the things that Geoffrey Wolff's book reveals as alien, even nauseating. Why did I react so differently to the two memoirs?
Both Wolffs are talented wordsmiths; Tobias seems the more restrained. That isn't the issue. It occurs to me that perhaps context is at work here. The poverty (while hardly Dickensian) and lack of power that Tobias -- a child, with his mother -- encountered worked on my sympathy. The profligacy and status that made Duke and Geoffrey's situation a romp, almost Fitzgerald-like, inclined me to be much less favorably inclined toward them. An adult male, raised in wealth, given all the advantages of knowing the keys to power in society, incited none of my sympathy. Duke was sympathetic only insofar as he showed love and respect, but his narcissism, recounted in episode after episode, became almost intolerable. When Geoffrey, Duke's son, misbehaved, it was occasionally amusing but usually cloying; when Tobias, Rosemary's son, misbehaved, it was a victim acting out.
While both memoirs use an effective episodic structure, Tobias Wolff is more judicious in focusing on fewer threads and returning to them in a surgical way. Geoffrey's litany of Duke's (and later his own) acts benefits and then eventually suffers from the overwhelming proliferation of craziness. It was numbing.
A telling exchange from the end of ch.21, starts with the fully repulsive Duke in jail, while his adult son tries to figure out how to balance an obligation to his family with a need to protect his own interest from the narcissist parent. Geoffrey is trying to make sense of Duke's most recent act of taking advantage of people simply because they could be taken advantage of:
A fascinating scene, and one of my favorites in the book. Wolff matter-of-factly says that he did not bail out his father, and nobody -- not even Duke himself -- could have blamed him. Like his younger brother, the moral character of the book is not in explicit judgment but in the revelation of tense scenes that the reader cannot help but react to, then parse.
Duke is one of the least likeable of characters in all of literature (in this case, literary nonfiction, of course). Even the horrifying Dwight, Tobias's abusive and brutish stepfather, earned more of my sympathy, and that's really saying something. I can't blame Geoffrey Wolff for telling the story of an unpleasant person and tiring me with it. He tells it with considerable intelligence and vigor, and as much love as can be expected. It feels a bit unfair for me to compare the brothers' books and find the less excellent one wanting, but that's how this played out.
I wonder only if I would have felt differently had I read Duke of Deception before This Boy's Life.
This book, focused more on a different family dynamic within the same family, I found much more unsettling. On the one hand, there were the human flaws: Tobias and Geoffrey Wolff's father, Arthur "Duke" Wolff, seems to have passed them to his boys as if by blood, although it's clear that nurture also played a role. On the other hand, there was love: Geoffrey Wolff perceived it -- at least occasionally -- through the haze of misbehavior and irresponsibility that his father spewed out of a life ill-lived (but oh-so-robustly so!). It was beyond odd to see the same bad behavior repeated across the family, even as they lived apart. The promises to change, unfulfilled; the pretensions and delusions; the reactions to bad parenting, at least some of which are understandable if not warranted; the fraudulent application to private schools; the prodigious talents mixed sourly with flawed character. The things that Tobias Wolff's book somehow made approachable and moral even in their wrongness are very similar to the things that Geoffrey Wolff's book reveals as alien, even nauseating. Why did I react so differently to the two memoirs?
Both Wolffs are talented wordsmiths; Tobias seems the more restrained. That isn't the issue. It occurs to me that perhaps context is at work here. The poverty (while hardly Dickensian) and lack of power that Tobias -- a child, with his mother -- encountered worked on my sympathy. The profligacy and status that made Duke and Geoffrey's situation a romp, almost Fitzgerald-like, inclined me to be much less favorably inclined toward them. An adult male, raised in wealth, given all the advantages of knowing the keys to power in society, incited none of my sympathy. Duke was sympathetic only insofar as he showed love and respect, but his narcissism, recounted in episode after episode, became almost intolerable. When Geoffrey, Duke's son, misbehaved, it was occasionally amusing but usually cloying; when Tobias, Rosemary's son, misbehaved, it was a victim acting out.
While both memoirs use an effective episodic structure, Tobias Wolff is more judicious in focusing on fewer threads and returning to them in a surgical way. Geoffrey's litany of Duke's (and later his own) acts benefits and then eventually suffers from the overwhelming proliferation of craziness. It was numbing.
A telling exchange from the end of ch.21, starts with the fully repulsive Duke in jail, while his adult son tries to figure out how to balance an obligation to his family with a need to protect his own interest from the narcissist parent. Geoffrey is trying to make sense of Duke's most recent act of taking advantage of people simply because they could be taken advantage of:
I asked my father if the story I had just heard was true. He shrugged. I asked again, and again he shrugged. "Never explain, never apologize"; he liked to say that. I told him that what he had done was wrong. I had many times suggested such things to him with sullenness and despairing sighs, but I had never before directly charged him with doing wrong. When I told my father that what he had done was wrong he stared at me, as though I had at last truly puzzled him."Don't you understand me at all?" he asked. "Do you think I care what they think is wrong?"
...
I yelled at my father through the mesh. Would he appear in court if I stood bail for him? I explained to him the bind I was in, the bind he had put me in. He did not seem sympathetic. Like the bondsman, he did not seem interested in the delicate character of my choice. I asked him bluntly: If I went to the edge for him, would he promise to come to court? He would promise nothing. He said I should do as I pleased, that he owed me no promises, he owed me nothing. (254)
A fascinating scene, and one of my favorites in the book. Wolff matter-of-factly says that he did not bail out his father, and nobody -- not even Duke himself -- could have blamed him. Like his younger brother, the moral character of the book is not in explicit judgment but in the revelation of tense scenes that the reader cannot help but react to, then parse.
Duke is one of the least likeable of characters in all of literature (in this case, literary nonfiction, of course). Even the horrifying Dwight, Tobias's abusive and brutish stepfather, earned more of my sympathy, and that's really saying something. I can't blame Geoffrey Wolff for telling the story of an unpleasant person and tiring me with it. He tells it with considerable intelligence and vigor, and as much love as can be expected. It feels a bit unfair for me to compare the brothers' books and find the less excellent one wanting, but that's how this played out.
I wonder only if I would have felt differently had I read Duke of Deception before This Boy's Life.
November 14, 2013
Authors Tobias and Geoffrey Wolff might be an argument for the presence in the human genome of a great writing gene. Following a tempestuous marriage and divorce, these two biologic brothers were raised separately. Tobias Wolff Tobias, the younger and perhaps more famous writer, (A Boys Life, In Pharaoh s Army, The Barracks Thief) was parented by his mother Rosemary while Geoffrey became the responsibility of his father, the Duke. Geoffrey Wolff was a long-time book reviewer for The Washington Post and achieved moderate success as a writer of fiction. However, it was his memoir, Duke of Deception: Memories of my Father, that brought the older Wolff critical acclaim.
Duke of Deception would perhaps be most accurately labeled a biography of his father, Arthur Samuels Wolff-“The Duke.” “The Duke” has become one of the most memorable characters in modern American literature. I first encountered the escapades of Wolff’s father reading an abstraction of Wolff’s memoir found in a writing textbook devoted to writing vivid characters.
Proving that the truth is more fantastic than fiction, the life of Arthur Wolff—a man his son calls the world’s greatest “bullshit artist”—provides a fascinating read producing alternating bouts of hilarious incredulity and profound disgust. Is it really possible that this man without a college degree and no experience could have become the chief engineer in multiple well known aviation companies? Or, could a man live so well for so long constructing imaginary personas and refusing to pay his debts? Had I not previously read Tobias Wolff’s accounts of their mutual father, collaborating accounts of events unknown to Geoffrey, the Duke’s amoral con-man career might have strained all belief.
Given the Duke’s outrageous and sometimes unconscionable parenting I suppose the memoir could be viewed as Geoffrey Wolff’s therapeutic efforts to shift blame for his own personal flaws. However, while the author is candid concerning his alcohol addiction and behavior flaws--flaws he points out that bear frightening similarities to father’s issues—Duke of Deception does not join that “blaming” sub-genre of memoirs so popular these days. Rather, this non-fiction memoir reads like an outstanding novel.
The best authors render fictional characters in a “thick” or “rounded” fashion. By this, it is meant the reader discovers a character on the page that is, as are most actual individuals, a montage of good and bad qualities, variable expertise, and multiple foibles. In the best memoirs the author must treat him or herself as a character, undergoing a self-interrogation equal in intensity to the inspection given the other characters. The “I” character must be shown in an equally “round” fashion or the reader will lose confidence in the author’s will to tell a true story. This memoir/biography meets this exacting standard.
The Duke of Deception also reads like excellent fiction because the author is skilled storyteller. Wolff isn’t interested in delivering parenting sermons or moral lectures or beating-down the reader with didactic facts. Readers are trusted to “get it.” and the prose flows smoothly. Using juxtaposition, suggestion, and omission, the reader is able to glimpse the author’s surprising and subtle empathy and sense his—and therefore our— slow acquisition of a deeper more dimensional but refracted truth about his father. Above all, the reader feels the whispered pathos of a young man growing-up in the company of a deeply flawed father.
I strongly urge newcomers to the memoirs of the Wolff brothers to read Tobias Wolff's A Boys Life in conjunction with Duke of Deception. A rare if not unique opportunity to read two highly skilled writers describe the same persons and reflect upon many of the same events from such different vantage points and with far different literary styles. A delicious literary treat.
Duke of Deception would perhaps be most accurately labeled a biography of his father, Arthur Samuels Wolff-“The Duke.” “The Duke” has become one of the most memorable characters in modern American literature. I first encountered the escapades of Wolff’s father reading an abstraction of Wolff’s memoir found in a writing textbook devoted to writing vivid characters.
Proving that the truth is more fantastic than fiction, the life of Arthur Wolff—a man his son calls the world’s greatest “bullshit artist”—provides a fascinating read producing alternating bouts of hilarious incredulity and profound disgust. Is it really possible that this man without a college degree and no experience could have become the chief engineer in multiple well known aviation companies? Or, could a man live so well for so long constructing imaginary personas and refusing to pay his debts? Had I not previously read Tobias Wolff’s accounts of their mutual father, collaborating accounts of events unknown to Geoffrey, the Duke’s amoral con-man career might have strained all belief.
Given the Duke’s outrageous and sometimes unconscionable parenting I suppose the memoir could be viewed as Geoffrey Wolff’s therapeutic efforts to shift blame for his own personal flaws. However, while the author is candid concerning his alcohol addiction and behavior flaws--flaws he points out that bear frightening similarities to father’s issues—Duke of Deception does not join that “blaming” sub-genre of memoirs so popular these days. Rather, this non-fiction memoir reads like an outstanding novel.
The best authors render fictional characters in a “thick” or “rounded” fashion. By this, it is meant the reader discovers a character on the page that is, as are most actual individuals, a montage of good and bad qualities, variable expertise, and multiple foibles. In the best memoirs the author must treat him or herself as a character, undergoing a self-interrogation equal in intensity to the inspection given the other characters. The “I” character must be shown in an equally “round” fashion or the reader will lose confidence in the author’s will to tell a true story. This memoir/biography meets this exacting standard.
The Duke of Deception also reads like excellent fiction because the author is skilled storyteller. Wolff isn’t interested in delivering parenting sermons or moral lectures or beating-down the reader with didactic facts. Readers are trusted to “get it.” and the prose flows smoothly. Using juxtaposition, suggestion, and omission, the reader is able to glimpse the author’s surprising and subtle empathy and sense his—and therefore our— slow acquisition of a deeper more dimensional but refracted truth about his father. Above all, the reader feels the whispered pathos of a young man growing-up in the company of a deeply flawed father.
I strongly urge newcomers to the memoirs of the Wolff brothers to read Tobias Wolff's A Boys Life in conjunction with Duke of Deception. A rare if not unique opportunity to read two highly skilled writers describe the same persons and reflect upon many of the same events from such different vantage points and with far different literary styles. A delicious literary treat.
January 16, 2017
This was the first memoir I've read where I found myself saying that perhaps some of these anecdotes aren't as interesting to us as they were for the author. Lots of grammar mistakes... I don't think they were intentional. Still, an interesting character study of a father's undiagnosed mental illness and the effect that has on one's immediate family. Written in a very detached, matter of fact way. Like the author is "over it". Fun fact--author's brother wrote a memoir himself. Maybe I'll check that one out someday.
July 6, 2013
I read his brother's memoir first, which I give 5 stars to too, but Geoffrey's memoir is about their father, whom he lived with. Tobias wrote about having to live with their off-kilter mom and her boyfriends and his cold stepfather. Quite an exposé of a dad who turned out to be a Great Imposter.
June 16, 2023
Wolff, Geoffrey, THE DUKE OF DECEPTION,, MEMORIES OF MY FATHER (1979), read 6-2023
James Baldwin is quoted as admiring the Book for its “loving lack of pity,” a good assessment of what Wolf accomplishes in this memoir of his father, Arthur Wolff, who was a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat who never paid his bills, but yet had the chutzpah to get away with his deceptions for most his life. In the end, as you might suspect, he ends up, derelict and alone, but it is his earlier life that his son concentrates on.
He is brutally honest in describing his father’s flaws and says that when he was young he knew his father was a phony, ripping off, in one way or another, every person that he encountered in his life. At the same time, though, he was an attentive father, even if he set bad examples in his behavior.
He never let his son think he was a burden, as he well could have, considering that Geoffrey was raised by his father after his divorce (a younger brother, Tobias, was raised by their mother). He let his son be independent and didn’t try to mold him into his own image. Of course, as Wolff points out, he was such a chameleon of a con-artist, it would have been difficult to choose which image. He wanted his son to be happier than he had been and preached to his son the value of good virtues, even though his son soon began to see from other people’s opinions, that his father seldom practiced them himself. Wolff writes, “With me, he was strict and straight, except about himself. And so I want to be strict and straight with him and with myself.”
A friend sad to Wolff, “In writing about a father, one clambers up a slippery mountain, carrying the balls of another in a bloody sack, and whether to eat them or worship them, or bury them decently is never clearly decided.”
What, then, has Wolff “decided” in these memories of his father? It’s a mixed response in that, yes, he tries to be straight in telling the truth about his father. Simultaneously, he loves his father, faults and all, even is impressed, in spite of himself, with some of the sheer effrontery of some of his father’s scams, especially ones he got away with. But in the end, his father’s life is a sad failure, and that, too, is chronicled.
James Baldwin is quoted as admiring the Book for its “loving lack of pity,” a good assessment of what Wolf accomplishes in this memoir of his father, Arthur Wolff, who was a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat who never paid his bills, but yet had the chutzpah to get away with his deceptions for most his life. In the end, as you might suspect, he ends up, derelict and alone, but it is his earlier life that his son concentrates on.
He is brutally honest in describing his father’s flaws and says that when he was young he knew his father was a phony, ripping off, in one way or another, every person that he encountered in his life. At the same time, though, he was an attentive father, even if he set bad examples in his behavior.
He never let his son think he was a burden, as he well could have, considering that Geoffrey was raised by his father after his divorce (a younger brother, Tobias, was raised by their mother). He let his son be independent and didn’t try to mold him into his own image. Of course, as Wolff points out, he was such a chameleon of a con-artist, it would have been difficult to choose which image. He wanted his son to be happier than he had been and preached to his son the value of good virtues, even though his son soon began to see from other people’s opinions, that his father seldom practiced them himself. Wolff writes, “With me, he was strict and straight, except about himself. And so I want to be strict and straight with him and with myself.”
A friend sad to Wolff, “In writing about a father, one clambers up a slippery mountain, carrying the balls of another in a bloody sack, and whether to eat them or worship them, or bury them decently is never clearly decided.”
What, then, has Wolff “decided” in these memories of his father? It’s a mixed response in that, yes, he tries to be straight in telling the truth about his father. Simultaneously, he loves his father, faults and all, even is impressed, in spite of himself, with some of the sheer effrontery of some of his father’s scams, especially ones he got away with. But in the end, his father’s life is a sad failure, and that, too, is chronicled.
April 1, 2025
In "The Duke of Deception," Geoffrey Wolff's story is a mirror image of what we see in "This Boy’s Life" by his brother. While "This Boy's Life" is mainly about Toby and his mom, Geoffrey's book focuses on their dad, Duke. The brothers didn't have much contact, but their lives end up reflecting each other in unexpected ways. Geoffrey’s writing style requires untangling at times, but he digs deep into the theme of deception. He looks at how lying is part of being human, coming from our needs to protect ourselves, fulfill our wants, and create new realities.
July 22, 2025
Holy moly. It took me several attempts over several years to finally finish this one and I'm glad I did. The back half is so so so good.
September 30, 2025
I thought this was very interesting. However, following on the heels of Tobias Wolff’s memoir it fell a little flat. Both men had awful childhoods for different reasons. An interesting read nonetheless.
January 11, 2019
Reading this book right after This Boy's Life, it took quite a while to settle into Geoffrey Wolff's style.
Unlike Tobias, who describes his own life, Geoffrey focuses squarely on the boys' father, Duke.
Duke's entire life consisted of frauds, from writing bad checks, to obtaining loans, falsifying his background, and running out of town in the middle of the night when the lies would no longer hold his creditors at bay.
Its a bit like "What About Bob", where you know the game's going to be up at some point and you are just wondering when everyone will find out. Duke had his kind moments like sticking up for his son, but he tends to lash out so harshly that his gestures fall wide of the mark.
Its interesting to see how long he's able to keep up his engineering job over a period of decades, knowing nothing but how to direct others. For the most part, this is enough. I'm glad his life was captured for us to glimpse into.
Unlike Tobias, who describes his own life, Geoffrey focuses squarely on the boys' father, Duke.
Duke's entire life consisted of frauds, from writing bad checks, to obtaining loans, falsifying his background, and running out of town in the middle of the night when the lies would no longer hold his creditors at bay.
Its a bit like "What About Bob", where you know the game's going to be up at some point and you are just wondering when everyone will find out. Duke had his kind moments like sticking up for his son, but he tends to lash out so harshly that his gestures fall wide of the mark.
Its interesting to see how long he's able to keep up his engineering job over a period of decades, knowing nothing but how to direct others. For the most part, this is enough. I'm glad his life was captured for us to glimpse into.
August 12, 2013
I bought this book for one dollar at our library book sale. It attracted me because I am fascinated by con men. This is a memoir in which the son first reconstructs his father's youth and then his own upbringing with his father, slowly waking up to the layers of deception.
The title character seemed not to be able to help his con-manliness. It was just who he was. This family was so outside my experience that it was a little bit like reading science fiction.
The quote at the beginning of the next book I picked up, I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression applies so well to this book that it almost spooked me:
I recommend this book if:
You grew up and went to prep schools in New England
You are interested in the psychology of con-men
You like rubbernecking at car crashes.
You enjoy good writing
The title character seemed not to be able to help his con-manliness. It was just who he was. This family was so outside my experience that it was a little bit like reading science fiction.
The quote at the beginning of the next book I picked up, I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression applies so well to this book that it almost spooked me:
"The son wishes to remember what the father wishes to forget"
I recommend this book if:
You grew up and went to prep schools in New England
You are interested in the psychology of con-men
You like rubbernecking at car crashes.
You enjoy good writing
May 21, 2015
An interesting companion to Wolff's brother Tobias's This Boy's Life; it's also worth reading in its own right. I found myself comparing the two books. Geoffrey's is deeper, smarter probably, and Tobias's is a more engaging, more conventional story. The main difference is that one likes Tobias as a person and narrator, while its harder to like Geoffrey. The latter comes off as a jerk, though we forgive him in some measure. He's both spoiled and neglected by his parents, and so we understand, but understanding and feeling warm towards are two different things. What irritated me most, infuriated me in fact, was the picture drawn of privilege here, of kids connected enough to get into the Ivy League (and previously the prep schools that lead to the Ivy League). The message--perhaps not the one Wolff meant to deliver--is that the connected, or seemingly connected, essentially can't fail, not for decades at least. They are given chance after chance, while the rest of us are never given a chance in the first place, not for that kind of success. One thinks of George W. Bush when reading this memoir, of screw ups too connected to fail.
April 30, 2016
A portrait of his father as a lifelong slacker and con artist. He was by definition a criminal, albeit a petty one, and seems the definition of a sociopath. I imagine this memoir had a heavy "gee whiz" effect when issued, because Duke Wolff associated with the upper class and conned his way into jobs he was unqualified for, such as an aircraft engineer. He was a man of paradoxes, largely a loving father who gave good advice he himself never followed.
Geoffrey shows himself narrowly escaping his father's life of fakery, unpaid bills, and self destruction. A good writer, his use of interviews can feel rather artless. It was satisfying to see him rise above his father's lies and lifestyle. Duke's nature is traced to his father, who didn't know or care who his son was. Of course, not every child so raised becomes a Bartleby-like rebel and lowlife. Duke is less interesting than a good person, the true mystery in life. That sometimes made it hard to stick with this memoir, given my growing disdain and disgust.
Geoffrey shows himself narrowly escaping his father's life of fakery, unpaid bills, and self destruction. A good writer, his use of interviews can feel rather artless. It was satisfying to see him rise above his father's lies and lifestyle. Duke's nature is traced to his father, who didn't know or care who his son was. Of course, not every child so raised becomes a Bartleby-like rebel and lowlife. Duke is less interesting than a good person, the true mystery in life. That sometimes made it hard to stick with this memoir, given my growing disdain and disgust.
January 6, 2010
Meh.
It was all right, but another memoir I was obligated to read for class, another memoir that illustrates the problems of the genre.
He relied too much on research, particularly "proof" for his anecdotes, that took me out of the story.
Also, not exactly sure hos to articulate this problem, but by about halfway through the book it was clear it was one of those books where the narrator was going to go out of his way to include sex stories (how is you losing your virginity relevant to a memoir about your father, seriously?). A case of the writer trying to build a certain persona, which was more alienating that anything.
With that said, the second half of the book was far more engaging, and it's a nice compliment to "This Boy's Life" (the book is Tobias Wolff's brother writing about roughly the same time period as that book, which was more interesting and better written), but I can't see coming back to this book again.
It was all right, but another memoir I was obligated to read for class, another memoir that illustrates the problems of the genre.
He relied too much on research, particularly "proof" for his anecdotes, that took me out of the story.
Also, not exactly sure hos to articulate this problem, but by about halfway through the book it was clear it was one of those books where the narrator was going to go out of his way to include sex stories (how is you losing your virginity relevant to a memoir about your father, seriously?). A case of the writer trying to build a certain persona, which was more alienating that anything.
With that said, the second half of the book was far more engaging, and it's a nice compliment to "This Boy's Life" (the book is Tobias Wolff's brother writing about roughly the same time period as that book, which was more interesting and better written), but I can't see coming back to this book again.
June 21, 2018
What an unusual family. The sons, Geoffrey and Tobias became renowned writers. The mother became the president of the League of Women Voters. The father was the Duke of Deception.
The Duke never let the truth get in the way of a good fiction. He reminded me a bit of the character in the movie Catch Me If You Can. Just a confidence man lying his way through life. I like this description by Geoffrey of his father after he died:
"I told how my father despised prudence, savings accounts, the idea of savings accounts, the fact of savings accounts, looks before leaps."
Duke just winged it and eventually it caught up with him. Geoffrey covered it in this 1979 memoir of his life with his father. Tobias lived with his mother. He covered that in his 1989 memoir.
Makes me wonder if they will ever make a movie of the Duke. It would be a great role for an actor.
Geoffrey is a superior writer as is Tobias. They both taught creative writing in prestigious programs.
The Duke never let the truth get in the way of a good fiction. He reminded me a bit of the character in the movie Catch Me If You Can. Just a confidence man lying his way through life. I like this description by Geoffrey of his father after he died:
"I told how my father despised prudence, savings accounts, the idea of savings accounts, the fact of savings accounts, looks before leaps."
Duke just winged it and eventually it caught up with him. Geoffrey covered it in this 1979 memoir of his life with his father. Tobias lived with his mother. He covered that in his 1989 memoir.
Makes me wonder if they will ever make a movie of the Duke. It would be a great role for an actor.
Geoffrey is a superior writer as is Tobias. They both taught creative writing in prestigious programs.
November 11, 2017
I liked this and it was well-written, intelligent, witty. But I don't have a ton to root for in the main character by the end. "Let me tell you about all the Yale fraternities I cavorted with"..."Here's the story of when I drugged a girl and felt her up while she was unconscious." Uh, okay.
Besides the bluster of all that, I liked the story of Geoffrey's father, Duke. Duke is also a scoundrel but it's an interesting and sometimes fun character study. His profligacy is absurd enough to be enjoyable. I also liked seeing how Duke's characteristics—the vanity, the preoccupation with clothing and material status symbols—seeped into his son. This is more the story of Duke than anything, with Geoffrey's own tale woven into the interstices.
Besides the bluster of all that, I liked the story of Geoffrey's father, Duke. Duke is also a scoundrel but it's an interesting and sometimes fun character study. His profligacy is absurd enough to be enjoyable. I also liked seeing how Duke's characteristics—the vanity, the preoccupation with clothing and material status symbols—seeped into his son. This is more the story of Duke than anything, with Geoffrey's own tale woven into the interstices.
April 23, 2013
Duke Wolff is a character who improvises his background and his life to meet his ends. He leaves in his background a trail of unpaid debts, angry landlords, relatives and friends.
The story is told from the point of view of his older son, Geoffrey. After Duke and his wife separate, Geoffrey lives with Duke and is estranged from his mother and his younger brother, Toby. Toby interestingly has also written a book about his life.
The story is told from the point of view of his older son, Geoffrey. After Duke and his wife separate, Geoffrey lives with Duke and is estranged from his mother and his younger brother, Toby. Toby interestingly has also written a book about his life.
February 13, 2014
There's just no way to describe how awful this guy's writing is. If a Junior High School Biology teacher was trying to imagine how a High School English teacher would write, it might be something like this. Every sentence is painfully overwrought and full of winky-winky references to other works that lowly people like you and me have probably never read. The guy's a dick.
September 1, 2014
Fascinating memoir of growing up with a con-artist father, written by the brother Tobias Wolfe, the author of This Boy's Life and several five start books of short stories. When their parents divorced, Geoffrey went with the con-artist father and Tobias with the flighty mother. This Boy's Life memoir of growing up with the mother. Read them both. Quite a story.
October 15, 2014
The writing was sharp and tight, with a strong voice and good humor, but the narrative really began dragging after the halfway mark and never picked back up for me. I'm not really a fan of dysfunction memoirs though....
September 1, 2021
I mean, it got published and was good at some point…but I thought these would be more mischievous things that happened. Mostly, this was a somewhat boring memoir about a guy who had a dad that was sometimes untrustworthy.
February 23, 2018
This is a devasting but beautiful, honest memoir of a father-son relationship. I could barely sleep after finishing the last few chapters. The truth vibrates on the page.
February 14, 2022
I came to this book by way of Mary Karr. I really enjoyed and learned a lot from her craft book The Art of Memoir, so when I saw she had a list of must-read memoirs I bought a handful of the titles and dove right in. I have to say I’ve been disappointed, though. Her list of titles covers a wide range of subjects, with each author offering a unique voice (or style). Unlike the commercial memoir, which seems to succeed based on the shock appeal of its confessions, the neatness of its narrative arc, and the feel-good ending that redeems the tragic past, literary memoirs seem to succeed or fail based on voice and pretty much voice alone. No matter what the author is talking about, if the distinct personality shining through the text doesn’t resonate with me, I lose interest. Unfortunately I’ve not found any voice of Karr’s favorite authors particularly compelling. In each instance I’ve recognized this early on in my reading, but since I’m studying the memoir genre with a critical eye and not simply reading for pleasure alone, I decided to slog through. I don’t regret pushing on because each book has been a new example of how to structure a narrative or tackle a theme (whereas once you’ve read a more-traditional memoir, you have, in a sense, read them all). I respect originality and authenticity even if I don’t love the specific product of those processes, and no matter what there are always some bits and pieces I can learn from and incorporate into my own style.
I mostly wanted to read this work because I’ve read the memoirs and fiction of Geoffrey Wolff’s brother, Tobias. I didn’t care for Geoffrey’s authorial voice nearly as much as I like Tobias’s, but the main problem here was the unevenness of the memoir. I found the first half excruciatingly slow and had a hard time figuring out where the story was. Was this a biography of his father? The story of Duke’s marriage to Geoffrey’s mother? Or was it a memoir about Geoffrey’s relationship with his father? All of that material was in there, and since Geoffrey was coming by the information second or third hand in answering those first two questions, I found the cold distance off-putting. Unfortunately, these sections comprised a good 50% of the book.
Once Geoffrey was old enough to relate to his father “man to man” (though this period actually begins in Geoffrey’s teenage years) the book came alive (father and son even become partners in crime). Here we start to see the effect of Duke’s parenting, the ways in which the traits of the father worm their way into the son. Sometimes Duke disappears from the book for a while and we just get Geoffrey muddling his way through (with occasional periods of triumph). Then, at last, the duke’s lifestyle catches up to him (though drugs also seem to play a role) and the old deceiver enters the crash dive of his career. We even find him in a Mexican jail, last stop for the down and out. Geoffrey doesn’t save him. There’d be no use, and besides, the young Wolff is actually starting to come into his own. Putting an ocean in between him and his father always seems to help.
Some highlights of this account are the days when Tobias joins Geoffrey in California and the older brother tries to educate the younger, assigning him readings and writing exercises. The two brothers are hardly family with how little time they spend together, and despite Geoffrey’s good intentions, Tobias heads home more than a bit confused and disillusioned. Still, he must have learned something because he scams his way into an East Coast boarding school. I guess a few tricks traded hands.
As interesting as it was to hear the various ways in which Duke deceived those around him in the professional world, got exposed, and failed upwards into managerial roles, we always read these types of tales with one eye ahead, toward when it all come crashing down. The father’s slow unraveling is tragic, inevitable, and enthralling. Thank goodness Geoffrey sidesteps in time to come into his own and realize his potential as a writer.
The book ends with Geoffrey trying to come to terms with his father through fiction (and nonfiction filled with lies). He assesses Duke as a good father and a bad man, and the text bears this out—it’s an interesting dynamic, really. I just wish Wolff had dove into that first thing and filled in Duke’s history through flashbacks and asides. For me this was a story that was worse off for being told in a linear fashion.
I mostly wanted to read this work because I’ve read the memoirs and fiction of Geoffrey Wolff’s brother, Tobias. I didn’t care for Geoffrey’s authorial voice nearly as much as I like Tobias’s, but the main problem here was the unevenness of the memoir. I found the first half excruciatingly slow and had a hard time figuring out where the story was. Was this a biography of his father? The story of Duke’s marriage to Geoffrey’s mother? Or was it a memoir about Geoffrey’s relationship with his father? All of that material was in there, and since Geoffrey was coming by the information second or third hand in answering those first two questions, I found the cold distance off-putting. Unfortunately, these sections comprised a good 50% of the book.
Once Geoffrey was old enough to relate to his father “man to man” (though this period actually begins in Geoffrey’s teenage years) the book came alive (father and son even become partners in crime). Here we start to see the effect of Duke’s parenting, the ways in which the traits of the father worm their way into the son. Sometimes Duke disappears from the book for a while and we just get Geoffrey muddling his way through (with occasional periods of triumph). Then, at last, the duke’s lifestyle catches up to him (though drugs also seem to play a role) and the old deceiver enters the crash dive of his career. We even find him in a Mexican jail, last stop for the down and out. Geoffrey doesn’t save him. There’d be no use, and besides, the young Wolff is actually starting to come into his own. Putting an ocean in between him and his father always seems to help.
Some highlights of this account are the days when Tobias joins Geoffrey in California and the older brother tries to educate the younger, assigning him readings and writing exercises. The two brothers are hardly family with how little time they spend together, and despite Geoffrey’s good intentions, Tobias heads home more than a bit confused and disillusioned. Still, he must have learned something because he scams his way into an East Coast boarding school. I guess a few tricks traded hands.
As interesting as it was to hear the various ways in which Duke deceived those around him in the professional world, got exposed, and failed upwards into managerial roles, we always read these types of tales with one eye ahead, toward when it all come crashing down. The father’s slow unraveling is tragic, inevitable, and enthralling. Thank goodness Geoffrey sidesteps in time to come into his own and realize his potential as a writer.
The book ends with Geoffrey trying to come to terms with his father through fiction (and nonfiction filled with lies). He assesses Duke as a good father and a bad man, and the text bears this out—it’s an interesting dynamic, really. I just wish Wolff had dove into that first thing and filled in Duke’s history through flashbacks and asides. For me this was a story that was worse off for being told in a linear fashion.
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