Carmela Ciucaru of the Los Angeles Times wrote "In Old School, Wolff again proves himself a writer of the highest order: part storyteller, part philosopher, someone deeply engaged in asking hard questions that take a lifetime to resolve".[3] In The Guardian, Blake Morrison called Old School a "concise, beautifully written novel" and praised Wolff for taking the "courage, in 2004, to write with nuance and affection about an all-male boarding school".[4]
Michael Upchurch of the Seattle Times suggested that despite being written as a novel, "in period, place and emotional feel, it's clearly the link between This Boy's Life and Wolff's Vietnam War memoir, In Pharaoh's Army."[5] He calls it "a slippery mix of truth and fiction" believing the material to be largely autobiographical.[5] He notes that the epigraph contains lines from the poem "Elegy for my Father" by Mark Strand hinting at why Wolff chose to write a novel.[5]
Accolades
Old School was a finalist for the 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.[6] The novel was chosen as a National Endowment for the Arts "Big Read" book for communities to read together.[7] The Libraries of Greater Kansas City chose Old School as their Big Read in 2009.[8]
