When I read the blurb my ears perked up a bit. I mean, really. A young boy, Alex, abandoned by his mother, his father was either working night shifts or drinking. So Alex starts skipping school, stealing cars, smoking. I thought it was really interesting.

And it was, don't get me wrong. It was an interesting story. The reader gets to see Alex grow up from a troubled teenager to a young man enlisted in the Army. And you get to see the struggles he overcomes. Stealing cars, getting arrested, being released from detention and going back to school where he's just as alone as before. You get to see all that.

I felt the pacing was a little too slow for me. The inner monologue at times dragged a little too much for my comfort.

Also, there where moments where I didn't connect at all with Alex. I mean, I understood his reasons for doing what he did. He wanted attention, he needed to fit in and he did whatever it took. But there were too many moments of "he didn't want to do this, but he kept doing it", "he didn't want to be here, but he didn't leave", "he didn't want to eat, but he kept eating" and other similar moments. It was in those moments that I couldn't help but think "well, if you don't want to..., don't". Those moments pulled me out of the story a few times.

It is possible that I had high expectations to begin with. My experience with coming-of-age stories isn't that big, so maybe that's a factor.

If you like coming-of-age stories, this could be the book for you. ( )

What interested me the most was to see if a novel, written in 1973, touted as one of the best…. Could stand up to today’s writing styles.
Mr. Weesner has definitely written a masterpiece. The fact that it was written thirty nine years ago does nothing to diminish the characters, ambience and sheer cruelty of growing up in less than ideal conditions. Alex Housman is nothing less than a troubled youth and yet he is just so likeable! He has no idea what compelled him to do what he did, but the path he set into motion from his actions altered his life forever.
After reading a short bio on Mr. Weeser you can’t help but wonder…. Fact or fiction?

I highly recommend The Car Thief. It is one ride you will not soon forget. ( )

We first meet Alex Housman when he is 16 years old, after he's stolen his fourteenth car. He can't quite pinpoint the reason why he does it but for perhaps an intangible feeling of being trapped in a tedious life filled with expectations that have no reward. Alex is smart but not interested in school. His father's job working second shift at the Chevy plant has the two of them living in a part of town that shames him. His father dresses sharp but is prone to alcoholic binges that give Alex plenty of time alone to struggle with his feelings or do his best to avoid them by joyriding in other people's cars. A self-made outcast, Alex has already seemingly hit the point of no return when readers turn the first page. He's already coming to terms with the fact that he'll soon be arrested, and so he is. What follows is Alex's story of detention and his struggle to fit back into his old life or a create a new one after his release.

Weesner's writing is austere in the same way some indie movies are austere, with no music, no frills or stunts to draw your attention from the rawness of his main character's journey. Dialogue only makes an occasional appearance in the pages of The Car Thief. A book with such limited dialogue can make for a slow-going slog, but such is not the case with The Car Thief. We live inside Alex's head as he seems to drift from place to place, vaguely ashamed of his alcoholic father and the evidence of their low-income life, making awkward and painful missteps with girls, with would-be friends, with the brother who he remembers fondly but seems to have moved beyond his reach. His thoughtful and emotional journey is so absorbing that the missing dialogue seems of little import.

Alex is reminiscent of Holden Caulfield without the obvious and irritating wall of cynicism. Alex's struggles with life's realities - recognizing his father for what he is both good and bad, his recognition of school as another version of captivity, and his realization that after crime and punishment he's no longer able to fit back into the mold of his past life - are dealt with convincingly and paced in just such a way that readers will feel that they are making these discoveries just as Alex is and not before. The Car Thief's coming of age story is brutally honest, painfully wrought, and compelling to read. ( )

"Buick Riviera. The Buick, coppertone, white sidewalls, was the model of the year, a '59, although the 1960 models were already out. Its upholstery was black, its windshield was tinted a thin color of motor oil. The car's heater was issuing a stale and odorous warmth, but Alex remained chilled. He had walked several blocks through snow and slush, wearing neither hat nor gloves nor boots, to where he had left the car the night before. The steering wheel was icy in his hands, and he felt icy within, throughout his veins and bones. Alex was sixteen; the Buick was his fourteenth car."

This is our introduction to the hero of this book, although in reality this sixteen year old boy is less rebel without a cause, more lost without a compass bearing. Alex has no understanding of why he steals cars beyond a restlessness, an ache for something different than the life he has.



“Billy don't like it living here in this town
He says traps have been sprung long before he was born
He says "hope bites the dust behind all the closed doors
And pus and grime ooze from its scab-crusted sores
There's screaming and crying in the high-rise blocks"
It's a rat trap, Billy, but you're already caught
And you can make it if you want to or you need it bad enough
You're young and good-looking and you're acting kind of tough
Anyway it's Saturday night, time to see what's going down
Put on a bright suit, Billy, head for the right side of town
It's only eight o'clock, but you're already bored
You don't know what it is, but there's got to be more
You'd better find a way out, hey, kick down that door
It's a rat trap, and you've been caught” *

Alex Housman is intelligent, yet school holds no interest for him, he lives with his father in a part of town that, if he had friends, he would be to ashamed to take them. His father has moments of sobriety between his alcoholic normality whilst still holding down a job working the second shift at the local Chevy plant. Alex spends an awful amount of time by himself, struggling with feelings that bubble & boil just below the surface, or else he buries them behind the wheel of a stolen car. The inevitable happens and he is arrested, as both Alex and reader knew he would be. Taken to a detention home, he finds himself locked up with no idea of a release date. Confined, with no way to escape or hide from himself, forces Alex to confront his feelings & acts as a catalyst. We follow Alex as he faces this moment and the issues that arise from it, until an event both horrific & yet ultimately freeing sends him off on a path that will define his life.

The car thief is a blunt & harsh tale of one individual trapped in a world not of their own making, with seemingly no way out. The writing has a simplicity that allows all the intensity of Alex’s life to be laid bare without any unnecessary embellishment. This is a tale that appears devoid of hope and yet a slight glimmer shines and in grasping that we can see there are possibilities of a future. Having read Theodore Weesner’s biography, made me realise that this is a work of autofiction & it takes quite a chunk of his youth as the basis of the tale. This isn’t meant as a slight on the book, just a relevant observation.

*This is part of a single called Rat Trap written by Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats, it reached #1 in the UK singles charts in November 1978 and tells the tale of a boy who feels trapped by where & how he lives.

http://parrishlantern.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-car-thieftheodore-weesner.html ( )

This review and more can be read on my blog here: The Muses Circle

The whole process of reading and reviewing this book came about in a completely different way. I am used to getting author requests, but this is the first time I've been approached by a publicist. Serena Ainesly, head publicist for Blue Dot Literary, asked me a couple months back if I would be interested in reading and reviewing The Car Thief by Theodore Weesner. The book has been described as a modern classic and "one of the best coming of age novels of the 20th century." The book was originally published in 1972 and is making a comeback. Why? How? Well, thanks to the ever growing popularity of e-books and modern technology, classic literature now can get a fresh new look. One company that takes pride in reintroducing modern classic novels to the masses is Astor + Blue Editions. As stated on their website, their mission is to, "help bridge the divide between Traditional Publishing and the Digital Electronic Book (ebook) Revolution." And so they have begun by giving us The Car Thief in a digital format and an eye catching new cover.

Before delving into this review, I just want to state that after doing a little research, some of the events in the story may be based on the author's life. Also, I couldn't help but notice that some of the more negative reviews were given because reviewers felt that Alex, the main character, was unrelatable and one dimensional due to his lack of showing emotion. What I don't think they understand is that is exactly what the author was trying to portray in the beginning of the story. Alex is a deeply troubled teenage boy that is basically NUMB. His father is an alcoholic who goes on frequent binges that has caused his son throughout the years to fend for himself. Add the fact that his mother not only abandoned him at an early age, but later comes back to take his younger brother but not him. Does he have any other family? No. Does he have friends? No. Does he have anyone in his life that he can vent to? Absolutely not. So what does this create? A boy that keeps everything locked inside and feels completely invisible to the world around him.

That being said, there are 3 parts to this story and each are equally crucial in showing Alex's mental and emotional development over the course of this novel: before his incarceration, during his stay at the Lincoln Hotel (detention center), and after his release. Before he gets caught, Alex is quite detached from the reality going on around him. He's been skipping school, has just stolen his 14th car, and has had a falling out with a girl named Eugenia. He doesn't skip school because he thinks it is cool. He doesn't steal cars because he wants to brag about it to his friends (not that he has any to brag to). He does it because he feels numb. He does it because he is tired of being invisible. Theodore Weesner has a way with words that pulls on the heartstrings. One such example is when Alex finally does get arrested and he wonders, "if there was any talk of him at the football game over in the city, any talk of the detectives taking him from school. Probably not, for not many would know where he had been taken, and if they had, if did not much matter." This quote proves that all Alex really wants is attention. He wants people, especially his father, to notice him, to care. Stealing cars was his unconscious cry for attention, to make him FEEL something. When he realizes the cops are on their way to get him, he doesn't panic like most people do. He doesn't try to run and hide, he doesn't cry. While he is scared, he handles the arrest in a very detached way.

The second part of the book is during Alex's incarceration and his stay at the Lincoln Hotel which served as a detention center. I like to call this section his reflective period. It's during this time that Alex starts to think about his past and we get to see glimpses of his childhood. We get a sense of what his life was like before his father entered the picture, how his mother just walked out the door, his love and responsibility to his younger brother, and the little odds and ends in between. For example, Alex remembers Mrs. Komarek, an older woman who used to take care of him and his brother Howard when they used to live with their mother. When she would go to work, Mrs. Komarek would bathe them, play the radio for them, rock Howard to sleep and, "would say too many times for it to be forgotten, 'I've got a crush on you little shitasses,' after which she always laughed happily."

This reflective period also helps give Alex a sense of purpose and family. He is shocked at how kind Mr. Kelly, the man who runs the Lincoln Hotel, is to all the boys. Basically, he is fair and sympathetic, despite what they are all in for. Alex is given a routine which teaches him responsibility but also gives him a sense of purpose which is very important to children and teenagers.

This reflective time in Alex's life is not always easy for him to handle. It's during this time that he really begins to understand that there is something not quite right with his relationship with his father. As he observes the children around him, he realizes something is missing in their eyes, which makes him wonder if something is missing inside him to: "They looked less then children this close. The girls in their sack dresses, their rough and unbrushed, unshining hair, the boys in their flannel shirts, some with eyes opened, as vacant as fish, some with eyes closed. They might have been missing an eighth or a quarter or a third of something hard to name or measure. And so he had to wonder if he was missing anything himself, and knew that he could not know."

The biggest eye opener is how is father responds to him being incarcerated. Instead of being angry or concerned about what drove his son to steal cars, he almost seems proud of Alex for doing it. He says, "I'll tell you something...just between the two of us. It takes some guts to do what you did. Don't you ever do anything like that again-- but don't you ever worry about it either." There is also more evidence that his father blames the system rather then realizing his alcohol problem, mood swings, and lack of stability were the catalyst. He is more worried about Alex keeping quiet and not mentioning his drinking then actually wanting to change for his son. Alex wants to be seen by his father. As crazy as this may sound, he wanted his father to get mad, to show some sort of emotion to prove he cares.

The third and final part of the book is Alex's release from the Lincoln Hotel and how he copes on the outside and how he deals with his new perceptions of his father. It's not an easy transition. Within minutes of his release, his father is already drinking on the car ride home. His classmates shun him. He owes money to Cricket Alan, who doesn't plan to forgive or let Alex forget. As he starts back to school, I couldn't help but be proud of him for trying to pick up his grades, even when he had teachers telling him there was not much he could do so late in the school year.

Alex was really starting to find his self worth by not allowing others to bring him down as he thinks here: "He cautioned himself again against failing, against letting Cricket Alan or Mr. Gerhinger or anything, make him stumble and fall and quit." I was cheering him on, but it was quite frustrating that there was no one to show him support and to tell him he was doing a great job. He even joins the basketball team which really does help build his morale. But the quote that breaks my heart every time I read it is his reason for joining the basketball team. He thinks: "He had the desire not necessarily or entirely for any glory, nor for anything like teamwork or character building, which Mr. Gerhinger liked to define. His reason was more simple: he wanted to hear his name on the loud speaker. He wanted to hear his name enough times, neither he nor the rest of them would forget it completely." Wow. I know I keep coming back to Alex's abandonment issues, but this clearly shows how invisible he feels, as if no one in the world sees him and he wants to change that so badly.

Alex's new self confidence falters after a series of events that leads up to a somewhat predictable, yet still profound, thought provoking ending. I don't want to divulge these details because I think what I've already stated in my review will help guide those of you who decide to give The Car Thief a try. What I mean by "guide" is that once Alex starts to go off course, his car stealing addiction sort of shifts to something else. And please take note of something the author does in the the beginning and towards the end-- a sort of comparison and contrast that can be made to show how far Alex's character has come. That is as far as I am going to go with that.

So some of you may want to know why I am giving The Car Thief 4 stars instead of a perfect 5 star rating when it is quite apparent how much I enjoyed this novel. I only have a few small issues but sadly I can't get too detailed because they are connected somewhat to the ending. My one issue has to do with Alex's obsession with Irene Sheaffer. At first I wasn't sure if it was genuine interest after seeing how Alex treated Eugenia and a girl from the detention center. Sometimes we create illusions and make people bigger in our imaginations in order to cope in extreme circumstances. Irene appeared in his dreams and fantasies during his stay at the Lincoln Hotel but I was a bit puzzled by their dynamic later in the story. Again, that is all I can say in regards to that. And while this novel was filled with absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking lines that I am sure to add to my favorite quotes on goodreads, I did feel that the author used details that could have been shortened to make the novel flow quicker. There were some parts that seemed bogged down. While this didn't bother me too much, I can see why others may have felt impatient to get to the crux of the story.

I truly believe that The Car Thief lives up to being called a modern classic. While it may take a small adjustment to get used to the language and setting of the 1950's, Weesner's style of writing has charm, and his simplistic way of explaining the thoughts and feelings of his main character is heartfelt and real. Astor + Blue Editions is really creating something special for the masses. I think it is a huge contribution to the literary world to be able to take classic literature that may have been forgotten and revive it with a fresh new look and new way for it to be enjoyed in the years to come. It's been a pleasure reading and reviewing The Car Thief and I want to thank Serena Ainsely and Astor + Blue Editions for honoring me with this task and being patient for this long overdue review.

Reviewed by: Mia @ The Muses Circle ( )