A Theft is a 1989 novel by the American author Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...

. Bellow originally wanted to publish the book as a story or serial in a magazine such as The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, but his agent had trouble selling it to any magazine. Bellow, instead, chose to publish it as a book, and it was his first book to be published in paperback form, which was something highly unusual for a book written by an erudite and respected author. Bellow himself said on the television show Good Morning America

Good Morning America

Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

that the book had the quality of a hardcover book, but lacked the requisite number of pages and, hence, was published as a trade paperback.

Plot

Clara Velde is a successful fashion writer in New York City and the star of the story. The book's title refers to the disappearance of Clara's prized emerald ring. Clara associates the ring with her love for the Washington, D.C. politico Ithiel and with her own professional and personal power. The ring's apparent theft leads Clara into a series of psychological crises and forces her to confront a long-buried complex of interpersonal issues.