The End of Boys

by Peter Brown Hoffmeister

Peter Hoffmeister was a nervous child who ran away repeatedly and bit his fingernails until they bled. Home-schooled until the age of fourteen, he had only to deal with his parents and siblings on a daily basis, yet even that sometimes proved too much for him. Over the years, he watched his mother disintegrate into her own form of mania, while his father—a scholar and doctor who had once played semi-pro baseball—was strict and pushed Peter particularly hard. He wanted only the best from his son but in the process taught Peter to expect only the worst from himself. In the midst of his chaotic home life, Peter began to hear a voice—an insistent, monotone that would periodically dictate his actions. When Peter finally entered public school he started to break free from his father’s control—only to fall sway to the voice more and more. His obsessive-compulsive behavior morphed into ruthless competition in sports and, ultimately, into lies, violence, and drugs.

The End of Boys follows Hoffmeister to the very brink of sanity and back, in a harrowing and heartbreaking account of the trauma of adolescence and the redemption available to us all, if only we choose to find it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Coming Of Age, Biography, Autobiography, Parenting, Biography Memoir

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 24, 2011

About the author

Author also writes under Pedro Hoffmeister

Pedro Hoffmeister's new novel, American Afterlife, is a thriller with Crooked Lane Books (distributed by Penguin Random House).
Writing under the name Peter Brown Hoffmeister, Hoffmeister's previous novels have earned places on Year-End "Best Of" lists for 2016 and 2017 by The American Library Association, VOYA, and Bank Street, and starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, VOYA, and The Bulletin.
Hoffmeister is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Too Shattered For Mending, This Is The Part Where You Laugh, and Graphic The Valley. He has also written the memoir The End of Boys, the nonfiction text Let Them Be Eaten By Bears, and a new collection of essays titled Confessions Of The Last Man On Earth Without A Cell Phone.
A former troubled teen, Hoffmeister was expelled from three high schools, lived for a short while in a Greyhound bus station, was remanded to a recovery and parole program, and completed a wilderness experience for troubled teens. He now runs the Integrated Outdoor Program and represents Ridgemont Outfitters as an outdoor athlete and climbs for Elevation Bouldering.
He lives with his wife and daughters in Eugene, Oregon.

Reviews

[Cindy Knoke · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the interesting things about, “The End of Boys,” is that this is such a middle class family. The author’s father is/was a prominent Neonatologist and the family led a typical life, religious, active in their church and community.

The Hoffmeister children were home schooled by an artsy mother who appeared to be suffering from some variant of bipolarity until they reached high school age. She was engaged with her children at times, but became increasingly disengaged and detached from them as time went on. The author reports that she at various points, neglected her children and their schooling severely, threatened suicide in front of them, and ordered her young son to shoot a local cat for scratching her baby. You get the sense that this is a mother who was not capable of competently home schooling her children alone for most of their childhood’s.

Dad was reportedly a classic Great Santini father with OCD and authority/brutality issues. After reading so many recent memoirs about children growing up in homes with markedly disturbed physician fathers, it does give one pause. It is hard to imagine this father running a Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit. I am sure he is a fine physician, who didn’t bring his problems to work, but it does give one pause.

This is a dad who reportedly punched his son in the nose breaking it, during a game of touch football, not by accident or in anger, but just because it was funny. This is a father who reportedly takes parent pressure to serious extremes, forcing motivational diatribes on his son each night before he goes to sleep. The author says of his father during his freshman year in high school, “My father is involved. He comes to my sporting events. Every match, every game. He’s not an absentee father, he’s the opposite.”

Not only every game and match, but many practices as well, getting in the coaches way, embarrassing his son, harassing his son for not playing tough enough. He was seemingly a helicopter parent from Hell. He reportedly made his son mow the lawn with a high fever, after which he had go the ER and to be treated for sepsis for six weeks in the hospital. Not a real sensitive sort of Dad. These parents the author reports, made the children smoke cigarettes, every couple of years of so, starting at age 7 and 5, until they threw up, so they wouldn't be tempted to smoke later in life.

The tension in the family becomes so severe that the author moves out of his family home in his sophomore year of high school. His brother, shortly after. They live with neighbors and friends, like orphans.

Both brothers end up in a series of school and other placements over the next several years. The book details these years in a compelling and engaging fashion. This is a book that grabs your attention and doesn't let you go, until the end. It is very well written.

One situation that caught my attention in particular, was one time when Peter was released home from a boarding school, and his parents wrote a letter for him to copy 25 times and sign saying that anything bad he had ever said about his parents were untrue. The parents than mailed these letters to their friends, family, neighbors and associates. This seems to indicate the parents had some awareness of the inappropriateness of their behavior and were trying to save their reputations. Not too flattering a picture.

The book is remarkable because the author is a brilliant writer and an unflinching storyteller. He goes on to get a Masters Degree in English, teach at the very high school he was expelled from. He brother becomes a famous and successful snow boarder. And the family does experience a degree of healing.

You will need to read this book to find out how this occurs. If you enjoy psychology, memoirs, and non-fiction, I highly recommend his moving and beautifully written book. The positive use this author has made of his life is admirable, encouraging and uplifting to everyone who reads this story.

Highly recommend.

[Dorianne Laux · Rating 5 out of 5]

The End of Boys is a remarkable story of a remarkable young man who made a remarkable choice: to be a husband, a father, a brother, a son, a teacher, and the writer he wasn't sure he could be. Peter Hoffimeister has written a terrific book about the human struggle to regain ourselves after great disillusion and desperation. It's a book about family, loyalty, humility and the "harsh journey" toward wholeness. I read The End of Boys in one sitting.

The End of Boys is a testament to the spirit of young boys everywhere, to mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, to friends and the parents of friends, to teachers, cops and counselors, to art and literature and the human desire to find a place in the world, to build a meaningful life out of shards and fragments. This is a fine book Peter Hoffmeister, made of fine true words, each one tough, carefully chosen, and hard-won.

[Karyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a hard time putting this book down. Page after page after page has highlights on it, as I marked the bits that particularly resonated with me. Peter's childhood starts out as rather idyllic, with a mother who plays and laughs with her children, but as he grows older, she becomes more and more emotionally distant, leaving her children to fend for themselves. Homeschooled until he was 14, he doesn't really fit into high school and has a hard time learning to blend in. His father has incredibly unreasonable expectations with him; he is lectured when he brings home a B in one subject because he's capable of so much more. His father's physical abuse in the guise of "just messing around" doesn't help either. As a result, Peter spirals down into a world of violence and drugs, being sent to various school from which he is expelled, and begins to head down the path of self-destruction. Amazingly, though it should be no surprise because of his natural intelligence, he brings himself out of the abyss all on his own. Now he's a mentor and example to boys just like him. It breaks my heart to see what all he has gone through, at such a very young age, yet for him it's an example of what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. I admire him so much for writing this powerful memoir, but even moreso his family for allowing such an unflattering portrait to be painted of them.

Because of this book, I am now reading Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird.

[Jennie Hoffmeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is everything I love about memoir. I read it twice.

[Kathleen Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a truly amazing memoir. Peter is a skilled wordsmythe and storyteller extraordinaire. But beyond the book, he has taken those broken shards of his teen years and created a beautiful mosaic that attracts and teaches hundreds of high school students, by the example of his healthy, wholesome, athletic, and compassionate adult life, to find growth and meaning, purpose and survival in the midst of their own trials and challenges. How wonderful that he made the choice to turn his experiences into springboards for helping and offering hope and life success to other troubled kids. His Integrated Outdoor Program blends tough wilderness activities with the appreciation of classic literature, personal reflection, and poetry writing under the starstudded skies and breathtaking beauty of central Oregon. He is also the most love-focused, encouraging, and happy-hearted husband and father there could ever be. I know because his wife is my daughter. I am so proud of him and his precious family.

[Jaylynny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm. Disjointed and confusing. A grueling childhood and adolescence, which could have been well-told and interesting (and has been before in better memoirs), but wasn't. The best part for me was the afterword, which was tight, illuminating and redemptive.

Some creepy cache because the author lives and teaches in my town and his father is well-respected here, but otherwise, not very worthwhile.

[Priscilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am breathless, (almost) speechless and in awe. The angst almost tore me apart. It's often those who struggled and bit and screamed but survived who can speak for and nurture kids. It makes me so delighted that He is a TEACHER! He gets it and can put it into beautiful words! Read this book!!!

[Jennifer Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject matter was difficult to read...but I am glad I hung in there for the ending. :) I felt the book was written well in terms of imagery, but the flow was a bit choppy.

[Nate Bloch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best memoirs out there and I’m surprised it never became a breakout hit. Anyone who didn’t have an awesome time in high school needs to read this book; it’s a mix of The Basketball Diaries and The Shining. The harrowing adventures Hoffmeister goes through shock the reader with every turn of the page. He proposes a terrifying philosophical quandary that is all too real for many young people: what’s more nightmarish, the adults in your home trying to inflict violence physically and psychically upon you, or the adults they have shipped you off to fix you? It’s a sobering reminder that even affluence is not always an escape from a vicious household.

I’m familiar with the city and school that the author ends up in so I’m a little biased: I love a good Pacific Northwest book by a local writer. Some of the prose is reminiscent of Kesey; but this memoir shoots lightening fast like a literary bullet. Blink and you’ll miss a horrifically gripping detail this book is packed with.

My only gripe is with the end. You get the sense Hoffmeister had spent enough time reliving the past as he wrote about it and hurried to finish the book. The result is several formative years packed confusingly together in a sprint to the end. But you’re still left with the feeling of wanting more. The author’s prolific outpouring of novels in recent years is the best reassurance he can give us that there are more good things to come.

[Alexander Marohnic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book about adolescence and coming of age and growing up in a difficult home

This book is incredible and very beautiful. It details the life of a young man growing up in a tough household and persevering through very difficult circumstances. It is told through the very intimate lens of his own thoughts and feelings, and because of this, holds incredible value in showing other young people who have lived similar experiences that they are not alone in what they have been through and what they feel.

[Andrew Schlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw and honest

Hits a nerve and makes it burn. Hard to believe it's true, but easy to understand that it came out of love and misunderstanding

[M Keathley · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most moving books I've ever read. Peter's story, especially his experience with OCD and Christianity, resonated with me on such a personal level. I sobbed many times throughout this book.

[maggie ! · Rating 4 out of 5]

very well written and engaging!! quite heavy though so it took a while to get through

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant. I'm not surprised he studied with Dorianne Laux.

"At night when I am alone, the machine comes suddenly like an old relative. The machine moves in, settles, unpacks its suitcases in the closet, hangs coats on the bedroom hooks. The machine moves in with its monotone."

"I know that I've lost something now because this keeps happening, and I feel as if this is all I ever come to, to this place, this knife, this feeling, almost killing, and I wonder that I'm not drunk because I feel fucked up and cold and hot, and this man, the drunk man, he's backing away from me toward a parked car and he trips over the parking meter and stumbles and takes a few steps and there's a wall he can follow along and he's scuttling back into the doorway of the bar and his off-white shirt gets hazy like cottonwood down floating off the river back home but it's hot in the spring there, back home, when the cottonwoods are dropping, and nothing about this night is even warm at all except my fist around the handle of the knife that's still cold, and there's the smell of the river water, the water in the air, and water everywhere, over my eyes and the city and the night, and I wonder why the water's not frozen because it's cold, cold every night here, so fucking cold, and no amount of weed will warm me up because I'm a long way from home and my bed and my room and my house and my family and anything and everything and everyone that I have ever loved, and I can sleep on a dirty floor with gum and spiders and garbage and wrappers and ants and dust and spit and cum, and I can sleep here and wake up, and I can sleep here and wake up again, but no amount of sleeping and waking will ever make it right."

"My father gives me an old computer, and I start writing. I write until three in the morning. Write dreams. Write fiction. Try to write about my schools and my expulsions and traveling and Dallas. But I can't do it.
"I never write about my family. How could I write about love and anger and truth and pain and compulsion and starting over?"

[Mmtimes4 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Hoffmeister was a nervous child who ran away repeatedly and bit his fingernails until they bled. Home-schooled until the age of fourteen, he had only to deal with his parents and siblings on a daily basis, yet even that sometimes proved too much for him. Over the years, he watched his mother disintegrate into her own form of mania, while his father—a scholar and doct
...morePeter Hoffmeister was a nervous child who ran away repeatedly and bit his fingernails until they bled. Home-schooled until the age of fourteen, he had only to deal with his parents and siblings on a daily basis, yet even that sometimes proved too much for him. Over the years, he watched his mother disintegrate into her own form of mania, while his father—a scholar and doctor who had once played semi-pro baseball—was strict and pushed Peter particularly hard. He wanted only the best from his son but in the process taught Peter to expect only the worst from himself. In the midst of his chaotic home life, Peter began to hear a voice—an insistent, monotone that would periodically dictate his actions. When Peter finally entered public school he started to break free from his father’s control—only to fall sway to the voice more and more. His obsessive-compulsive behavior morphed into ruthless competition in sports and, ultimately, into lies, violence, and drugs.

The End of Boys follows Hoffmeister to the very brink of sanity and back, in a harrowing and heartbreaking account of the trauma of adolescence and the redemption available to us all, if only we choose to find it.

This was my book club choice for December. I like reading stories about people's lifes and how they make choices, rise above circumstances, and see where it all leads. I admire Peter for writing his story and owned his responsiblity in his choices but also how affected he was by his parent's style of parenting. Good read.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Hoffmeister was a nervous child who ran away repeatedly and bit his fingernails until they bled. Home-schooled until the age of fourteen, he had only to deal with his parents and siblings on a daily basis, yet even that sometimes proved too much for him. Over the years, he watched his mother disintegrate into her own form of mania, while his father—a scholar and doctor who had once played semi-pro baseball—was strict and pushed Peter particularly hard. He wanted only the best from his son but in the process taught Peter to expect only the worst from himself. In the midst of his chaotic home life, Peter began to hear a voice—an insistent, monotone that would periodically dictate his actions. When Peter finally entered public school he started to break free from his father’s control—only to fall sway to the voice more and more. His obsessive-compulsive behavior morphed into ruthless competition in sports and, ultimately, into lies, violence, and drugs.

The End of Boys follows Hoffmeister to the very brink of sanity and back, in a harrowing and heartbreaking account of the trauma of adolescence and the redemption available to us all, if only we choose to find it."

It's always interesting to read about the lives of other people. The choices we make become part of who we are, shaping and molding us. I appreciated Peter's honesty about his childhood. He shows that even though we make mistakes we can turn our lives around... it's about choices and loving.

[Adriana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting memoir of the author's transition from childhood to his out-of-control teen years, and while I laud him for his honesty in relating events that can only be painful to look back on, it felt like something was missing. Mr. Hoffmeister's relationship with his father was strained, and at times abusive. By the end of the memoir, we get a glimpse of what adult life has been like for the author, and while I'm glad he straightened himself out and everything seems to have worked out for him, I can't quite understand how he and his father finally came to terms with their differences and rebuilt their relationship. In one scene, they're ready to come to blows, the hostility between them almost palpable, and then later on, everything between them is fine. Even if no reconciliation took place between them, I would have liked a description of how Mr. Hoffmeister came to be all right with their past. However, considering that this was available as a free download, I shouldn't complain because other than that, it was an engrossing enough read.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this book. I found it very fascinating. The author does a really good job capturing the reader in the first few pages. I was totally hooked and couldn't put the book down.

The style of writing is different from the norm. The author writes the events of the story in a non sequential order which is somewhat confusing at first, but in the end the whole story comes together.

I really liked Peter's voice. He has some very interesting inner dialogue. I loved hearing how he knew things were bad and he shouldn't do them, but he didn't really care and does them any way.

I would have given this book 5 stars if it didn't have such extensive use of the "f" word. I know it was part of the main characters' personality, but it doesn't mean I like it.

I loved the author's description at the end of the book. I love it when authors are honest and blunt about how they feel about their books. It made me like the book that much more.

Good read. Lots of swearing. No sex. Reference to drug use.

[Elizabeth R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read so many memoirs that I have rather high standards for them. Overall, this was a well done book, but I felt like the story was a little choppy and didn't have much of an arc. Not that someone's life must have a dramatic arc, but...okay, maybe it should, in a memoir. ;) He wrote this memoir while the family members mentioned within were still alive, and because they are not portrayed in the best light, I wonder if he left out some of his own reactions in an attempt to go easier on them. That might be what I felt was missing--his own thoughts and emotions in response to the things happening. I also thought that one of the main points of the book was to discuss his OCD, but it was really drawn tangentially into the story and yet I felt like he was trying to make it the focal point--and somehow, this didn't come together. If I could, I'd give it 3.5 stars, but not 4. A valiant effort. Well done for telling the story at all, because holy turmoil.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly written, how a book is supposed to read. Capturing your attention right from the beginning and keeping you intrigued until you’ve finished the last sentence in the Acknowledgements section. You want to know every little thing about each person in the story. It leaves you yearning for more stories of a fascinating childhood, troubled youth and finally an inspiring man.

Raw and relatable, with honesty you don’t expect. This book reminds me in a way of ‘The Glass Castle’; although, I actually found ‘The End of Boys’ more exciting and easier to read.

This is a must read for men and women alike. Make sure you have some time because you won’t want to set it down. I read it in a day.

[Liz Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life is all about perspective, right? The next time I think that my family is dysfunctional, I must remember Peter Hoffmeister and his family,... then my family will seem just like the Ingalls.

This is an incredible, brutally honest story of a troubled young boy and his desperate struggle to find a sense of normalcy. Somewhere. It is disturbing and sad and raw and powerful and impossible to put down.

I give this book 4.5 stars. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is because it seemed a bit choppy (which confused me at times) and I wish I could have learned more about his transition into adulthood (the ending seemed quite rushed). But otherwise it was fabulous and I highly recommend it.

[Dianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Painful, revealing, brutal...Peter Hoffmeister has shared his sad and twisted story of growing up in a supremely dysfunctional family with an overbearing, powerful father and a mother who seems to disappear into herself. It is made all the more impressive, because it is TRUE and this gifted author came through, if not completely intact, at least strong and content in his own self-worth.

Surviving isolation from the world, drug dependency, and an emotional wasteland, this author has the strength to share his story in an often bleak and gritty style that rips you up from the inside out. That he is a strong survivor is nothing short of miraculous.

If you are looking for a book that will stick with you long after that last page, this is it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. There are parts of this book that I earmarked to read again, simply for the beautiful writing. But what is really amazing to me is the ability that Hoffmeister has to show the flaws in people. It is a powerful thing to show the shortcomings in a parenting style and how that can turn around and be alright. People learn from their mistakes. We all make parenting mistakes and instead of coming away from this book hating his parents I came away loving them for their human frailties and being able to learn from their mistakes. This book is a true example in the power of forgiveness and understanding. I highly recommend this book'

[Leah Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a coming of age story of a man who grew up in Eugene, the son of a Eugene physician, and an artist. He was homeschooled for much of his life. I did meet him (and his father) once when he was briefly enrolled in public middle school, when he came to dinner at our house. He attended a local high school for a time, as well as several other schools in other parts of the country. He was expelled from several of those schools. He survived all this, and much more, and currently teaches at a local high school. Peter is a very good writer, and it was hard to put the book down. Check out the cover picture on this book!

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Hoffmeister articulates so well the weirdness of childhood and the Sisyphean struggle to do more than just fight to survive. It's not so much the awfulness of his particular hell, but how he gutted his way along through choices that were strengthening, life-threatening, illuminating or completely stupid, and made a man of himself - a man I'd trust my kids to because he knows a child's terror, his sadness, his rage, his loneliness and his exultation.

"The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed." G.K. Chesterton

[Daniel Golden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read 80% of this book on a 6-hour plane ride form Philadelphia to San Francisco. I initially found the non-sequentialness of the book to be annoying, and I sometimes failed to see the relevance of the author's italicized asides in the context of the body of the chapter. As I continued reading, however, I became totally engrossed in his story. I do wish that the book was longer and had more detail throughout, though this can be forgiven as it was written so long after the events took place. Plus, the brevity adds to the level of interest. Overall, this is a supremely interesting autobiographical piece about the author's often turbulent adolescence.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Hoffmeister's memoir describes his childhood years filled with anxiety and growing up in a dysfunctional family, his troubling teenage years and his path to a changed life. I read this as a book club selection and perhaps would not have selected it on my own. But this is what I enjoy about a book club ... to be stretched and expand my reading taste. Peter Hoffmeister hit a "home run" during the last few chapters. It was good to see how we all can make a difference in someone's life, see potential and cheer someone on as a teacher, friend, spouse or family member. I'm glad I read this book.

[Cate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. Hoffmeister describes a painful adolescence in this memoir - he went to some very dark places inside himself. Which reflected in lots of violence and destructive behaviour. I was surprised that as everything went wrong, his parents packed him off to other friends, other family ie anywhere but home. He came out at the other end, as did his brother & sisters. Interesting point in the last chapter - the two youngest children were raised by the same parents but in a totally different family. Learning from mistakes I guess, & holding the parental reins less tightly. Worth reading.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, did this guy have an eventful life. There was so much to go through, and all of it so interesting. The author did a very good job of portraying his feelings about the events, which allowed the reader to do the same. The pace was very quick, jumping from story to story, but it all connected. Since it jumped from event to event, it sometimes mentioned in between an everyday life event, describing an OCD action and thoughts, which was weird because that seemed downplayed in the book, but only brought out in the juxtaposition to remind the reader that even the down time was a struggle.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

You meet or hear about people that startle you. You think, he's messed up. How he get that way? Here's the backstory of a life shaped in a most dysfunctional family. It's a hard book to put down because the writing style and looking at the author's life has that it's so awful you can't look away aspect.
A young life out of control. But he changed. I wish that climb from the bottom had been more fully examined.