“A harrowing psychological study of the effects of kidnapping and child molestation on the victim, the abductor, their families, and the investigating detective.”
—American Library Association, (ALA) 1987 Notable Book List
“The True Detective is tough-minded, but subtly done. The language, the details, the progress of the POV sections—everything serves Weesner’s total effect brilliantly. And while it deals with a sensational, even loaded subject, ultimately I’d say the novel is that rare achievement, a wise book, and maybe the saddest book I’ve read. That it’s also a page-turner is a marvel.”
—Stewart O’Nan, acclaimed author of Emily Alone and Last Night at the Lobster
“The True Detective is a wrenching novel to read. It is a crime novel that more than any other I have read that takes in the whole situation of the crime. There are no obvious villains here, or easy answers. This is not a genre novel. It belongs on the literature shelf.”
—David Guy, USA Today
“Weesner seems to have a pipeline into the minds of young people when they are confused and in trouble . . .” (The True Detective is) “. . . a compulsively readable thriller that is to the nuclear family what Hiroshima was to the nuclear bomb, and the best account yet of its detonation.”
—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune
“Theodore Weesner, author of the much praised The Car Thief uses his moving story of the abduction, rape and murder of a 12-year-old boy to raise the kind of moral questions that no caring person can ignore today.”
—Marilyn Stasio, Fort Worth Morning Star Telegram
“When it first appeared in 1972, The Car Thief took its place as one of the great coming of age novels of the twentieth century. Forty-five years later, it brings back a lost moment in America’s past, the brash young auto industry on an exhilarating joyride, Michigan’s Motor Cities roaring with life. 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. Kimble and The Condition
“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
“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
“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
“A simply marvelous novel. Alex emerges from it as a kind of blue-collar Holden Caulfield.”
—Kansas City Star
“Winning the City is a fine novel, a crisply written story about a young boy’s struggle to define himself.”
—James Carroll, Ploughshares
“A courageous author . . . No one better has a handle on heartbreak— he reminds me of a latter-day Dreiser who writes better, stylistically . . . What is so special about Weesner is the emotional precision.”
—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune
“. . . a knockout! . . . Dale’s struggles to win in a world whose odds are stacked against outsiders . . . leads to a heartbreaking kind of disillusionment and courageous maturity.”
—Dan Wakefield, Boston Globe
“Winning the City tells of a young athlete ‘nearly driven out of mind with all he knew,’ but Mr. Weesner’s own mind is superbly clear on every page. He is an extraordinary writer.”
—Richard Yates, New York Times Bestselling Author of Revolutionary Road