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The War of the Roses: Love, Marriage and Divorce In a Chilling Tale of Marital Destruction

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Overview

This is the book that inspired one of the most famous movies about divorce ever produced. The movie is shown somewhere in the world every week, and the book has been translated in almost every language on the planet. War of the Roses tells the story of Oliver and Barbara Rose, who thought they had a perfect marriage, only to discover that their relationship was barely skin deep. The war they wage against each other eventually descends into brutality and madness as they destroy each others most prized possessions and spiral into chaos. The global impact of both the book and the movie has brought the phrase "The War of the Roses" into the accepted jargon describing the terrible hatred and cruelty engendered in divorce proceedings.

Editorial Reviews

Perhaps better remembered now for this work's feature film adaptation, Adler here traces the initial romance, failed marriage, and bitter divorce of Oliver and Barbara Rose. Though their actions turn maniacally brutal, Adler manages to make them seem logical under the circumstances. The book was first published in 1981. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Warren Adler

Warren Adler is a world-renowned novelist, short story writer and playwright. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages and two of his novels, The War of the Roses and Random Hearts, have been made into enormously popular movies, shown continually throughout the world. Three short stories from his acclaimed collection The Sunset Gang have been adapted as a trilogy and shown on Public Television stations. The Overlook Press will publish a new novel, his 29th, in Spring 2008, and his fifth short story collection, New York Echoes will be published in late Winter of 2008 by Stonehouse Press. His play Libido is scheduled for an off-Broadway production in 2008. His stage adaptation of the novel The War of the Roses is currently being produced in Italy, Berlin, Hamburg, Prague and countries in Scandinavia. Mr. Adler is a pioneer in electronic publishing and has acquired his complete backlist and converted this entire library to digital publishing formats. As a novelist, Mr. Adler's themes deal primarily with intimate human relationships--the mysterious nature of love and attraction, the fragile relationships between husbands and wives and parents and children, the corrupting power of money, the aging process and how families cling together when challenged by the outside world. Readers and reviewers have cited his books for their insight and wisdom in presenting and deciphering the complexities of contemporary life. A product of the New York public school system, Mr. Adler graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and New York University, where he majored in English literature. Inspired by his freshman English Professor Don Wolfe, Mr. Adler went on to study creative writing with Dr. Wolfe when he taught at the New School. He also studied under Dr. Charles Glicksburg at the New School. Among his classmates were Mario Puzo, William Styron and many other talented writers. Two collections of short stories "American Vanguard" and "Which Grain Will Grow" were published by Doubleday and represented a showcase of many young emerging authors, who like Warren Adler, won both popular and critical acclaim. "I wanted to be a novelist since I was fifteen years old," he says. "Throughout my early career, I would write from five to ten in the morning every day before going to my office, a habit that has stayed with me since." After graduating from New York University with a degree in English literature, Mr. Adler worked for the New York Daily News before becoming Editor of the Queens Post, a prize winning weekly newspaper on Long Island. His column "Pepper on the Side" became a staple of a number of newspapers in the country. During the Korean War, after basic training he was recruited by Armed Forces Press Service to serve in the Pentagon as the only Washington Correspondent for the service. His Washington by-line went all over the world and was published in every publication put out by the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard. Prior to his success as a novelist, Mr. Adler had a distinguished business career. He has owned four radio stations and a TV station, has run his own advertising and public relations agency in Washington, D.C. and was one of the founders with his wife Sonia and son David of the Washington Dossier magazine. When his first novel was published in 1974, he became a full time novelist. Today, when not writing, Mr. Adler lectures on creative writing, motion picture adaptation and the future of Electronic Books. He is the founder of the Jackson Hole Writer's Conference and has been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Jackson Hole Public Library. He is married to the former Sonia Kline, a magazine editor. He has three sons, David, Jonathan and Michael and four grandchildren and lives in New York City.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Stonehouse Press

Filesize

489.82 KB

Number of Pages

256

eBook ISBN

1590062140

Excerpt from: The War of the Roses by Warren Adler

A cold rain whipped across the clapboard facade of the old house, spattering against the panes. Like everyone else in the bone-damp parlor set up theater style with folding wooden-slat seats, the auctioneer raised his gloomy eyes toward the windows, perhaps hoping the gusty rain would shoot out the glass and abort the abysmal performance.

Oliver Rose sat on an aisle seat, a few rows back from the podium, his long legs stretched out on the battered wooden floor. The room was less than half full, no more than thirty people. Behind the auctioneer, strewn around like the aftermath of a bombing, lay the assorted possessions of the family Barker, the last of whom had lived long enough to make some of this junk valuable.

". . . it's a genuine Boston rocker," the auctioneer droned, his voice cracked and pleading as he pointed to a much abused Windsor-style rocking chair. "Made by Hitchcock, Alford and Company, one of the finest names in chairs." He looked lugubriously around the silent room, no longer expectant. "Damn," he snapped. "It's a genuine antique."

"Ten bucks," a lady's voice cackled. She was sitting in the first row, bundled in a dirty Irish sweater.

"Ten bucks?" the auctioneer protested. "Look at these tapered back spindles, the scrolled top rail, the shaped seat. . . ."

"All right, twelve-fifty," the lady huffed. She had been buying most of the furniture offered, and it seemed to Oliver that the auction was being held for her benefit.

"The whole thing stinks," a voice hissed. It came from a veined Yankee face beside him. "The rain's mucked it all up. She's got the antique store in Provincetown. She'll get it for a song and sell it off to the tourists for ten times as much."

Oliver nodded, clicking his tongue in agreement, knowing that the rain was his ally as well. Most of the tourists who had crowded into Chatham on Thursday and Friday, hoping for a pleasant Memorial Day weekend at the beach, had left by midmorning. At the Breaking Wave, where Oliver was a summer waiter, the dining room for the Sunday lunch looked and felt like an off-season resort, and his tips had matched the mood.

But the weather on Cape Cod, at best, was uncertain. He was used to it. All through Harvard undergraduate school, he had worked summers at the Breaking Wave, amusing himself at the antique auctions on those days he couldn't get to the beach. He was especially fond of those held at the old cottages after the owners had died off. Rarely could he afford to buy anything, although occasionally he picked up a Staffordshire figure for a song.

He had grown up being watched over by the four female figures of Staffordshire pearl ware representing the Four Seasons garbed in d?collet? white robes. They peered out of his mother's dining-room china closet, emblems of his father's war service in England. Once, he had broken Spring, which he had removed in a clandestine prepuberty compulsion to feel the little lady's tits; the figure had slipped out of his hand, and was decapitated on the floor. Always good with his hands, he had done a magnificent glue job and his mother was never the wiser.

Now, as if out of guilt, he had acquired a modest collection of his own, some common sleeping-child figures and a ubiquitous sailor and his wife and child. He had done a bit of research on the subject as well and, although the figures were comparatively cheap, he suspected that, someday, they would increase in value.

The auctioneer reached for the boxing figure and held it above his head. Then, putting on his glasses, he read from the spec sheet.