Reviews
" The Car Thief is a poignant and beautiful 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 simply marvelous novel. Alex (the protagonist) emerges from it as a kind of blue-collar Holden Caulfield." - Kansas City Star "Weesner lays out a subtle and complex case study of juvenile delinquency that wrenches the heart. The novel reminds me strongly of the poignant aimlessness of Truffaut's The 400 Blows . Beneath its quiet surface, The Car Thief -like its protagonist-possesses churning emotions that push up through the prose for resolution. Weesner is definitely a man to watch-and read." - S. K. Oberbeck, Newsweek "The measure of Weesner's very great achievement is that he has endowned [his characters'] lives with such compelling interest and, even more, a certain beauty." - The Boston Globe "What The Car Thief is really concerned with emerges between its realistic lines-slowly, delicately, with consummate art. Perhaps Mr. Weesner himself put it best: 'In my work, I guess I wish for nothing so much as to get close enough to things to feel their heart and warmth and pain, and in that way appreciate them a little more.' Judging from this book, his wish has been fulfilled... and then some." - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times, "One of the great coming-of-age novels of the twentieth century... Ted Weesner's seminal novel demands a second look for its marvelously rendered young protagonist, the unforgettable Alex Housman; for its courage and wisdom and great good heart."-- Jennifer Haigh, New York Times Bestselling Author of Broken Towers , Faith , Mrs. Kimple and The Condition "Remarkable, gripping..." -- Joyce Carol Oates, Author of Them , The Wheel of Love , and Wonderland "Weesner's perfectly restrained and subtle exploration of the characters' painful and often difficult emotions caused me to have an intimate and emotional connection to a character and story of such a seemingly distant world. It taught me that even the most personal of stories can be universal and it is with this belief that I have adapted The Car Thief into what I hope will be a film that does some justice to the most beautiful novel that ever broke my heart." -- Dara Van Dusen, Filmmaker, " The Car Thief is a poignant and beautiful 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 simply marvelous novel. Alex (the protagonist) emerges from it as a kind of blue-collar Holden Caulfield." -- Kansas City Star "Weesner lays out a subtle and complex case study of juvenile delinquency that wrenches the heart. The novel reminds me strongly of the poignant aimlessness of Truffaut's The 400 Blows . Beneath its quiet surface, The Car Thief --like its protagonist--possesses churning emotions that push up through the prose for resolution. Weesner is definitely a man to watch--and read." -- S. K. Oberbeck, Newsweek "The measure of Weesner's very great achievement is that he has endowned [his characters'] lives with such compelling interest and, even more, a certain beauty." -- The Boston Globe "What The Car Thief is really concerned with emerges between its realistic lines--slowly, delicately, with consummate art. Perhaps Mr. Weesner himself put it best: 'In my work, I guess I wish for nothing so much as to get close enough to things to feel their heart and warmth and pain, and in that way appreciate them a little more.' Judging from this book, his wish has been fulfilled... and then some." -- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times, "One of the great coming-of-age novels of the twentieth century… Ted Weesner's seminal novel demands a second look for its marvelously rendered young protagonist, the unforgettable Alex Housman; for its courage and wisdom and great good heart."- Jennifer Haigh, New York Times Bestselling Author of Broken Towers , Faith , Mrs. Kimple and The Condition "Remarkable, gripping…" - Joyce Carol Oates, Author of Them , The Wheel of Love , and Wonderland "Weesner's perfectly restrained and subtle exploration of the characters' painful and often difficult emotions caused me to have an intimate and emotional connection to a character and story of such a seemingly distant world. It taught me that even the most personal of stories can be universal and it is with this belief that I have adapted The Car Thief into what I hope will be a film that does some justice to the most beautiful novel that ever broke my heart." - Dara Van Dusen, Filmmaker
