American Heiress
Jeffrey Toobin 
Doubleday
<p>From <span>New Yorker</span> staff writer and bestselling author of <span>The Nine </span>and <span>The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson</span>, the definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history<br><br>On&nbsp;February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre “Tania.”<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing—the Hearst family trying to secure Patty’s release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the bank security cameras capturing “Tania” wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Patty’s year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term “Stockholm syndrome” entered the lexicon. &nbsp;<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret&nbsp;documents, <span>American Heiress</span> thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. <span>American Heiress </span>examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors’ crusade.&nbsp; &nbsp;<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Or did she?</p>
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