Search Details

Word: duking (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first (reverse)


Usage:

Judging by its subtitle, "Memoirs of My Father," and its ominous preface, "Opening the Door"--in which the author "thanks God" for his father's death--Geoffrey Wolff's Duke of Deception seems to belong to this nightmares-in-the-nursery trend. But the initial likenesses are misleading; unlike his fellow excavators of the past, Wolff's maturity enables him to emerge--after a respectable period of thrashing--from the muck. He unflinchingly lays out the shoddiest episodes of a shameful upbringing, yet from this scrutiny he extracts a peace with that segment of his life over which...

Author: By Susan C. Faludi, | Title: Daddy Dearest | 10/20/1979 | See Source »

...Duke Wolff, a confidence man, conducted all his affairs close to the edge, masquerading as a WASP, a Yale graduate, an aeronautical engineer with the proper degrees from--of all places--the Sorbonne. He unscrupulously altered his give-away Jewish name the same way he adjusted his resume--as it suited his needs. When his creditors threatened to blow his cover, he skipped town, cruising indifferently from Manhattan extravagance--lunching at Club 21 and collecting forged membership cards from places like the New York Racquet Club--to boarding house sleaziness in Atlanta, and at last to a dishonorable...

Author: By Susan C. Faludi, | Title: Daddy Dearest | 10/20/1979 | See Source »

After his father's death, Wolff said he felt compelled to write Duke of Deception, because it "was the only way I know how to deal with being left behind by my father." Duke left behind his son both literally--deserting the family in the mobile home mecca of Sarasota, Florida, for a financially-draining fling on Vancouver Island--and emotionally--substituting "glittering things" for fatherly affection. Continuing the precedent set by Geoffrey's grandfather, Duke discovered "love's shortcut through stuff," lavishing filched motorboats and sportscars on his child...

Author: By Susan C. Faludi, | Title: Daddy Dearest | 10/20/1979 | See Source »

...stakes were too high. As a child he based his own legitimacy on his father's identity; if his father did not exist, neither did he. So, he blindly trotted off to Harvard-Yale games with father, who rooted passionately, "as though he had a stake in its outcome." Duke even went so far as to buy English bulldogs to suggest his connection with Old Eli. Despite gaping holes in the Ivy League story--a friend once hailed Duke as a classmate from Penn in Geoffrey's earshot--Geoffrey "preferred this fabulous notion to the transparent reality." Children year...

Author: By Susan C. Faludi, | Title: Daddy Dearest | 10/20/1979 | See Source »

...understandable that Geoffrey would shy away from the awful truths about his father, but it's peculiar that at no time did a suspicious employer challenge Duke Wolff with a copy of the Yale Alumni Directory. No one bothered to question his patently phony credentials, because Wolff's devil-may-care lifestyle harmonized with American post-war values, which rated bravado far above competency. Both the child, Geoffrey Wolff, and the nation idolized men who--like Duke--"despised prudence, savings accounts, looks before leaps...

Author: By Susan C. Faludi, | Title: Daddy Dearest | 10/20/1979 | See Source »

Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Next