The Car Thief

“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.