The Car Thief - by Theodore Weesner (Paperback)

About the Book

Hailed by The Boston Globe as "so poignant and beautifully written, so true and painful, that one can't read it without feeling the knife's cruel blade in the heart," The Car Thief was first published to enormous popularity, and sold over half a million copies. Alex Housman is a kid who at the age of sixteen has had fourteen cars, harbors many hurts, and seems to fade into his environment while raging inside. His father is an alcoholic, losing his grip on life even as he wants the best for his son. The Car Thief explores the love Alex and his father share, in a tremendously poignant story that is filled with unusual triumphs.

Book Synopsis

"A poignant and beautifully written novel, so true and so excruciatingly painful that one can't read it without feeling the knife's cruel blade in the heart." --Margaret Manning, The Boston Globe

At the age of sixteen, Alex Housman has just stolen his fourteenth car. His parents are divorced and he lives with his father, an alcoholic who keeps a pint in the glove compartment and works the night shift. Alex hopes for many things: to be admired by a quiet and lovely girl like Irene Shaeffer; to live like his younger brother, Howard, who is at the lake with his mother and her new husband; and to part of the lives of others. The Car Thief explores the love between Alex and his father, both of whom are eventually driven to acts of desperation in this emotional story, filled with profound insight and unusual triumphs.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Car Thief

"A remarkable, gripping first novel." --Joyce Carol Oates

"The Car Thief is a poignant and beautifully written novel, so true and so excruciatingly painful that one can't read it without feeling the knife's cruel blade in the heart." --Margaret Manning, The Boston Globe

"A story so modestly precise and so movingly inevitable that before I knew what was happening I felt in the grip of some kind of thriller. . . . The climactic episode is one of the most profoundly powerful in American fiction, secretly and simply, like the book of which it is a part." --Joseph McElroy, The New York Times Book Review

"What The Car Thief is really concerned with emerges between its realistic lines-slowly, delicately, and with quiet but consummate art." --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

About the Author

Theodore Weesner lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He is the author of The Car Thief, Harbor Lights and Novemberfest, as well as four other novels. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, and Best American Short Stories.