Wolff The Duke Of Deception

Wolff, Geoffrey: A day at the beach. Recollections. New York: Knopf, 1992.
In his extravagantly acclaimed memoir The Duke of Deception, Geoffrey Wolff recounted life with his father, a confidence man. Now he gives us the story of his own coming of age-the moral (sometimes immoral) education of the student, writer, teacher, friend, husband and father. A Day at the Beach rings with the same subtle, spirited, musical voice as The Duke of Deception, and with the same startling high-stakes candor. The book is constructed around the title piece, in which Wolff tells hilariously of the misbegotten Caribbean holiday during which he was struck down, and of his subsequent open-heart surgery. The personal history leading to and from this brush with death in the middle of life carries us through a wildly varied sequence of locales: from the rarefied literary circles of academia to the smoky jazz clubs of Greenwich Village; from the red-light district of Istanbul to a Vermont country fair; from the slopes of the Matterhorn to the heart of the Gulf Stream. Mit einer Dankeswidmung des Autors. Umschlag leicht berieben, sonst aber ein gutes und sauberes Exemplar.

259 p. Hardcover with dustjacket.

Details

Wolff, Geoffrey: Providence: a Novel, New York Viking Press 1986
ISBN: 0670804614 Very Good

Very Good in Very Good- jacket 8vo. Has minor wear, price stickers on dj, From Publishers Weekly Wolff's two works of nonfiction, The Duke of Deception and Black Sun, were widely and well reviewed, and this novel merits similar attention. Providence, R.I., is more than the backdrop for this intriguing tale; the city, faultlessly captured, assumes a role as crucial as those played by the main characters. Adam Dwyer is a criminal lawyer who learns that he is dying of leukemia. He and his wife Clara then receive another blow: their home is robbed by two young thugs, Skippy and Baby, who strip the family of most of their treasured belongings. Tom Corcoran, the police officer assignedto the case, becomes involved with Skippy's waitress girlfriend. Very divergent aspects of Providenceits criminal justice system; the streets of Federal Hill (home of the city's mafiosi); and the fashionable upper East Side, fertile ground for thievesbring these individuals into often violent contact with each other. Wolff's setting and characters come alive in a way that may shock and frighten some readers; all but the very squeamish will be entertained. 50, 000 first printing; BOMC selection. Foreign rights: Lescher & Lescher. February Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal This black, bleak comedy tells of parallel lives in Providence, R.I. The Dwyers are middle-class, settled, safe in their lives until the day that Adam, a lawyer, finds out he's going to die of leukemia. Skippy, Babe, and Lisa are young sociopaths on the lookout for fun and fortune. When the lives of these two "families" cross, no one survives without trauma. The result is a diverting gallery of grotesques and grotesqueries, a litany of sex, perversion, violence, crime, and corruption. Providence...read more. Good Hardcover

Details

Wolff, Geoffrey: The Age of Consent, Picador 1996
ISBN: 0312140819 Very Good

PW: The sins of parents are visited on their children in this superb new novel by the author of The Final Club and the nonfiction The Duke of Deception. This is a stinging social and cultural portrait of a time, a place and a generation whose highflown ideals masked a weak moral fiber. Paperback 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches

[SW: circus, great fiction, historical fiction, paranormal romance, dark hunter series, time travel, zombies, kite runner, women, women writers]

Details

WOLFF, GEOFFREY: THE DUKE OF DECEPTION, New York: Random House, 1979. The fascinating story by author Woolf of his father, a consumate con man who posed as a Yale graduate, a member of the OSS, and a one-time fighter pilot turned aviation engineer. In reality, he was a failure who flunked out of a series of undistinguished schools, was passed up for military service, and supported himself with incredible schemes exploiting employers, wives, and, finally, his own son. A great reading experience is to compare this book with a memoir by Geoffrey Woolf's brother, Tobias, who covers alot of the same material in This Boy's Life. This is a near-fine copy in quarter-backed tan cloth and paper boards with a previous owner's name on the endpaper and a bookplate on the pastedown in a very good pictorial dustwrapper. Includes illustrations.

First edition Hardcover

Details