The Rose Thieves: Stories
These loosely connected stories, many of which have been previously published, take us inside a family that is by turns beguiling and exasperating. We follow the peregrinations of a couple, who eventually divorce, and their four children as they are beset by economic instability and emotional waywardness. Ma, a volatile, fey beauty, and Pa, a stockbroker whose sentimentality interferes with his professional and personal relationships, remain unscathed in their drafty house in an arcadian New England, as their children grow into awareness of their parents' conflicts and adjust to them. Kate, the eldest, entering adulthood, observes their reckless, attractive demeanor: "My family loves a crisis, a chance to drop all the tedious ordinary chores and surrender ourselves to emotion." Schmidt's first collection is an entertaining coming-of-age chronicle that captures the rueful humor in family ambiguities.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.