The Rose Thieves: Stories

By Heidi Jon Schmidt

Book Overview

The Rose Thieves gives us the Vanderwald family: flamboyant, hot-tempered Lila, who feels trapped living in a small New England town; her sentimental, eternally optimistic husband, a failed futures-market investor; and their children. An affectionate daughter steals flowers from gardens all over town for her big sister's sixteenth birthday. A tea party for the local minister is turned upside down by a four-year-old's remark. Sheep wander through the kitchen, an enraged mother swan menaces the sisters as their own mother entertains a possible lover, and, after a near-disaster, Lila proclaims "We faced death; death couldn't face us " Amidst the chaos, Kate, the oldest daughter, practices piano because "Haydn will give
order to everything, if only you play him right."

With wit, natural artistry, and a keen eye for the absurd, Heidi Jon Schmidt effortlessly weaves stories of strange but all-too-real family life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312288328
• ISBN13: 9780312288327
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A bittersweet coming of age story

THE ROSE THIEVES is the first humorous book written since the 1940's that is actually fun and funny . Written by Heidi jon Schmidt, who can take her seat at the table with Benchly, Parker, Cerf, and Thurber, the ROSE THIEVES is a bittersweet tale about growing up in the 1960's amid a family beset by bankruptcy, divorce, and insanity. The level of desperation is so great it is almost farcial. Schmidt knows how to tell a good yarn and time a joke. The ROSE THIEVES is one of the last great American novels written by someone not influenced by the television age