The Barracks Thief

• Study Guide
• Group

The Barracks Thief (Magill Book Reviews)

It is the mid-1960’s. When Philip Bishop’s father leaves his mother for another woman, Philip’s reaction is to deny his own anguish. At high school, his grades drop. He does manage to get accepted by a junior college, but he is unhappy there. One day, after a tense talk with his estranged father, Philip walks down to the marine recruiting office, finds it closed, and enlists in the army instead.

Philip finds that he is happier with the regimentation of army life than with the confusion of family problems. At Fort Bragg on the Fourth of July, he is assigned to patrol a...

[The entire page is 777 words long]

Navigate

• The Barracks Thief (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
• The Barracks Thief (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
• The Barracks Thief (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
• The Barracks Thief (Magill Book Reviews)

See Also:

• Tobias Wolff (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
• Tobias Wolff (Short Fiction)