Tom Wolfson (b. 1949) was raised in New York City's Upper East Side (Henderson Place) and attended Collegiate School for Boys for 13 years (K-12). Son of Emmy Award winning author, playwright, novelist, and historian Victor Wolfson, Tom struggled in the shadow of his infamous and charismatic father. Spectacular family feuds between his father (born of anarchist Russian immigrant Jews) and his Boston Brahman mother, who sought liberation from her upper class trappings through her involvement in the labor and socialist movements, influenced Tom's childhood. Graduating at the very bottom of his class, Tom set forth in the tumultuous Sixties to make his own way in life. From anti-Vietnam war unrest at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a stint on a Vermont commune, a short-lived career as a hansom cab driver in New York's Central Park, Tom made his way to Los Angeles where he worked in the plumbing, restaurant, and insurance businesses and became involved for nine years in a primal therapy cult called The Center for Feeling Therapy. Following the cult's collapse in 1980 Tom became a public school teacher certified in social studies and moved with his wife to Cape Cod family property, a place of childhood happiness, to care for and reconcile with his then ailing and elderly father. Conflicted over how his father intended to bequeath his properties and with his father's demanding behavior, as well as feeling stranded like a blackfish on a beach suffocating under its own weight, Tom moved with his wife and new baby to northernmost Down East Maine. There he taught Passamaquoddy Indians and Woodland High School students for a year before resettling in less remote but still rural Bristol, New Hampshire. While teaching 8th grade social studies, working as a waiter, and delivering oil and kerosene for the Dead River Oil Company, Tom was able to earn his master's degree in liberal studies with an emphasis on creative writing at Dartmouth College. In 1990 Victor Wolfson died dramatically and characteristically in a house fire at the Cape property and Tom and his family inherited a portion of the land and a delapidated antique house. With the help of a Wampanoag medicine man and shamanic ritual along with a soul affirming and rekindled passion for stage acting and writing, Tom battled and eventually made peace with the ghost of his father. He lives in Wellfleet to this day.

“The author has produced a richly detailed, deftly written book ... A smooth read that succeeds as a case study of the failed promise of the baby boomers.”
– Kirkus Reviews