"The divorcing Roses go to battle over their beautiful home and the objects in it - and take revenge to stunning heights. You may have seen the fantastic 1989 film with Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, but the book is even more terrifying, black-humored, black-hearted and bristling, because you're trapped inside the self-justifying, increasingly mad minds of Oliver and Barbara Rose." --Gillian Flynn, Author of Gone Girl "The War of the Roses is a clever look at the breakup of a marriage... It is Adler's achievement that he makes the most bizarre actions of each (party) seem logical under the circumstances.... Both frightening and revealing."
-- The Washington Star "Warren Adler writes with skill and a sense of scene."
-- The New York Times Book Review "A very, very funny novel."
-- New York Daily News "This book is a dazzler, the wildest, most outrageous, most macabre comedic book we've read in years."
-- Richard Zanuck and David Brown
From the Back Cover
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.
About the Author
Warren Adler is best known for The War of the Roses, his masterpiece fictionalization of a macabre divorce turned into the Golden Globe and BAFTA nominated dark comedy hit starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. In addition to the success of the stage adaptation of his iconic novel on the perils of divorce, Adler has optioned and sold film rights to more than a dozen of his novels and short stories to Hollywood and major television networks. Random Hearts (starring Harrison Ford and Kristen Scott Thomas), The Sunset Gang (starring Jerry Stiller, Uta Hagen, Harold Gould and Doris Roberts), Private Lies, Funny Boys, Madeline's Miracles, Trans-Siberian Express and his Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series are only a few titles that have forever left Adler's mark on contemporary American authorship from page to stage to screen. Learn more about Warren Adler at warrenadler.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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.
