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Exert from flap of cover: The car thief is Alex Housman. He is sixteen and he steals cars because he cannot help himself. The setting of the book is an automobile city-a city like Flint or Detroit-a large mid-American city whose industry makes itself felt everywhere. Alex's parents are divorced and he lives with his father, a die-setter at Chevrolet. His father is an alcoholic, a man who keeps a p... More

Exert from flap of cover: The car thief is Alex Housman. He is sixteen and he steals cars because he cannot help himself. The setting of the book is an automobile city-a city like Flint or Detroit-a large mid-American city whose industry makes itself felt everywhere. Alex's parents are divorced and he lives with his father, a die-setter at Chevrolet. His father is an alcoholic, a man who keeps a pint in the glove compartment of his car, or hidden under the hood, so he can slop away from the factory to drink, a man who dresses in sharp and expensive clothes on weekends to roam the city. Alex hopes for many things: to be admired by a quiet and lovely girl like Irene Sheaffer; to live like his younger brother, Howard, who is at the lake with his mother and her new husband; to be part of the lives of others. As the novel begins, Alex has just stolen his fourteenth car. He will soon be caught, both for this theft and for stealing money from his classmates' wallets in the school locker room. The book moves from Alex's arrest to the brutality of the "Lincoln Hotel"-the detention home where he is confined while he awaits his hearing before the judge-to juvenile court and then back to high school; to Alex's attempts to cover the time lost in detention-but now he is even further outcast and driven to further acts of desperation. The Car Thief is also a novel of father and son, for Curly Housman joins Alex in the climax of the novel. Well-meaning, wanting the best for his boy, but a participant himself in the events around him, Curly moves toward his final act, the act he believes will free them both.

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