What makes Alex run?: The Car Thief

Started Theodore Weesner's 1972 debut novel, The Car Thief, a novel that seems to have had 3 lives: not sure what attention it received if any on initial publication (though Weesner went on the a great teaching career), became one of the first pick-ups from Vintage Contemporaries in the 1980s - probably the hottest series of its day - and now I think getting a little attention from those, like me, who read earlier this year of Weesner's death and wondered: Who was this guy? The first section of the novel is excellent. It's the story of a 16-year-old, Alex, in 1970s Detroit-Flint area, living w/ his father, mother out of the picture although near by, and the story begins w/ his joy riding through snowy and slushy industrial Michigan in a stolen Buick Riviera (my dad's car in that time!) on a school morning. The account of his drive through and around the city, one wary eye looking for police cars, is great and tense, cinematic even. Alex cruises past the lakeside inn where his long-estranged mother works, drives by a suburban school where a few weeks back he'd picked up a girl who was captivated by his city toughness, then heads back to school. Over this span, we see that he's a deeply troubled kid - he's been on a spree, stealing more than a dozen cars over the past few weeks - but also he's enigmatic: It's not entirely clear why he acts out so radically. Although there is no mention of friends male or female, he seems to be on the school basketball team and to enjoy sports. A kindly teacher, noticing that he's been cutting class, tries to speak w/ him privately about his troubles - but Alex resists. We also learn that despite the cool that enabled him to "pick up" a girl at a the suburban school he is completely awkward with girls - won't go to school dances, blurts out to a girl he barely knows that he loves her, obviously upsetting her in doing so. We also learn that his dad, though a serious drinker prone to binges, is kind and caring - has a good factory job w/ Chevy and is doing his best under tough circumstances. So what makes Alex run? Toward the end of the section he gets picked up by the police and locked away in a juvenile detention center - extremely scary, though Alex seems a little blase and disengaged. Not sure how much of the novel will be set there. This story obviously recalls Sillitoe's Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner - car theft, acting out, working class family, juvenile detention; I also see a parallel w/ the great Italian movie Shoeshine, another harrowing look at so-called juvenile justice. Novel off to an excellent start, and its ultimate success will depend on the deepening and development of Alex as a character.