By Eva Ciabattoni

Having completed the first leg of an 18-city book tour, Stanford Professor of Creative Writing Tobias Wolff made a stop at Kresge Auditorium Nov. 17 to read from his new novel, “Old School” (Alfred A. Knopf, released Nov. 4).

Four years in the making and heralded by the appearance of chapters in The New Yorker, this work revisits the familiar theme of class begun in Wolff’s memoir “This Boy’s Life,” when teenage Toby forges the transcripts and recommendations necessary for admittance to the prestigious Hill School.

Wolff read that section to general hilarity before reading from the first chapter of “Old School,” which features a photo of Hill School on its cover, although the school is not named in the book. Picking up where “Life” left off, albeit in novel form, “School” describes the fierce competition among boys to win audiences with visiting writers and poets through submission of writing samples.

In his introduction, Stanford University Dean of Continuing Studies Charles Junkerman used the Italian word “sprezzatura,” meaning the effortless grace more frequently ascribed to top athletes or dancers than writers, to describe Wolff’s prose.

Lecturer and former Stegner Fellow Julie Orringer, who arranged the reading, cited Wolff’s numerous awards. She told of being in awe of him when she first met him as a student at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and how fortunate it was for the community to have him teaching at Stanford.

Wolff fielded audience questions, commenting on the dreadful freedom afforded by writing fiction. He said with regard to nonfiction and the slipperiness of truth that “facts are infinite and we can manipulate them in infinite ways to our own ends.”

Asked about competition with his older brother, writer and teacher Geoffrey Wolff, Wolff said it was an unmitigated blessing being in the same field and able to gossip about the same people. He credits his brother with providing the spark of inspiration during the summer of his 15th year, when, upon Geoffrey’s graduation from Princeton University with a degree in English, they were to spend the summer together with their father.

After their father was admitted to a mental institution, Geoffrey worked by day and assigned Tobias readings and essays by night to impart his own intoxication with literature.

Wolff signed copies of his new book as well as his memoirs and short story collections.

The next Stanford Continuing Studies literary event is the George Orwell Symposium, scheduled 7-9 p.m. Dec. 3, at the Annenberg Auditorium in the Cummings Art Building. Admission is free.