Boyle's voices are excellent, especially the Sopranos-worthy Jersey accent he voices for the robbers. He speaks with an easy amused air, as if he's expertly telling a well-rehearsed joke rather than reading words off the page. His appreciation for Wolff's language comes through in the vivid narration Boyle gives.

Boyle certainly has an enthusiasm for the story he's chosen. If, like me, you've been bored with the navel-gazing path that contemporary short fiction has taken, this story is a welcome change. This contrast of putting a comic figure into a serious situation makes the story both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply profound. In the second part of the story, the plot takes a major turn and we get to see the humanity of the critic. If this story was indeed first written as revenge against a critic, I can picture Wolff coming back to his draft and realizing that he had been unfair to the character he created. The man is such an ass, in fact, that he can't help but smirk and heckle in the middle of a bank robbery, exactly when he should keep his mouth shut. The story, in the beginning, is a harsh portrait of a book critic who has lost the joy of literature and instead sees cliches in every novel he reviews. The baseball game therefore represents Anders’s lost innocence and joy, embodying a time when Anders was more compassionate and sympathetic towards others.The story: Although I don't know the circumstances for the writing of 'Bullet in the Brain', I could imagine that it began as a revenge fantasy against a critic who had panned Wolff's work. 1 Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff Anders couldn't get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. As an adult, this sort of mispronunciation would be the target of Anders’s scorn, but as a child, Anders was more forgiving and openly curious about the world. Anders finds the mispronunciation musical and interesting, and is so struck by the phrase that he almost asks Coyle’s cousin to repeat it. When Coyle’s cousin is asked why he picked shortstop, he mispronounces a few words during his explanation, likely due to his southern accent. The neighborhood boys ask what position Coyle’s cousin wants to play, and Coyle’s cousin claims the role of shortstop. Before the game begins, a neighborhood boy, Coyle, and Coyle’s cousin, who is from Mississippi, arrive at the baseball field. Memories of the summer heat and the chirps of insects set a scene of idyllic innocence, a sharp contrast to the violent and unfortunate situation Anders is experiencing outside of his memory.

When Anders is shot and a bullet begins traveling through his brain, Anders remembers a baseball game from his childhood.

Wolff bullet in the brain