{"product_id":"old-school","title":"Old School by Tobias Wolff","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt's 1960, in America, at a prestigious boys' public school, a place of privilege that places great emphasis on its democratic ideals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA teenage boy in his final year, on a scholarship, has learned to fit in with his adoptive tribe while concealing as much as possible about himself and his background. Class is ever present, but the only acknowledged snobbery is a literary snobbery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThese boys' heroes are writers - Fitzgerald, Cummings, Kerouac.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey want to be writers themselves, and the school has a tradition whereby once a term big names from the literary world are invited to visit. A contest takes place with the boys admitting a piece of writing and the winner having a private audience with the visitor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen it is announced that Hemingway will be the next to come to the school, competition among the boys is intense, and the morals the school and the boys hold dear - honour, loyalty and friendship - are tested.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo one writes more astutely than Wolff about the process by which character is formed, and here he illuminates the irresistible strength, even the violence, of the self-creative urge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThis is a novel that, in its power and its beauty, in its precision and its humanity, is at once contemporary and timeless.\u003c\/h3\u003e","brand":"Bust-Down Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50341996396859,"sku":"0747574650","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0855\/2077\/7531\/files\/4017853482454.jpg?v=1748604422","url":"https:\/\/bustdownbooks.com\/products\/old-school","provider":"Bust-Down Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}