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329 reviews for:
American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst
Jeffrey Toobin
3.83 AVERAGE
329 reviews for:
American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst
Jeffrey Toobin
3.83 AVERAGE
The good: The story is interesting and I learned a lot I didn’t know. The author clearly did extensive research.
The bad: The author can’t keep his opinions and snide comments out of a book where the facts should speak for themselves. If a character is a bumbling idiot, let his actions show that, don’t tell us. I prefer my non-fiction without a lot of clearly-biased commentary from the author.
The bad: The author can’t keep his opinions and snide comments out of a book where the facts should speak for themselves. If a character is a bumbling idiot, let his actions show that, don’t tell us. I prefer my non-fiction without a lot of clearly-biased commentary from the author.
Toobin is a great reporter and a solid storyteller. Unfortunately his opinions intrude a little too much into American Heiress; too often he dismisses the SLA and their adherents as phonies instead of investigating their motivations further. Also, his clear dislike of Patricia Hearst is often palpable, most jarringly in the book's last declaration that she "ended up becoming her mother."
dark
tense
medium-paced
dark
informative
fast-paced
If Toobin was looking for a media-circus, true-crimer to rival his OJ book, he found the perfect subject in Patty Hearst. In his usual brisk, ultra-detailed prose, the journalist dives deep into the 1974 kidnapping (40 years ago!) & its wild aftermath as pampered rich girl Hearst transforms into gun-toting revolutionary Tania. He has perhaps a tad too much fun mocking everyone from the bumbling Symbionese Liberation Army to the besotted F. Lee Bailey. No one will ever accused him of making history boring. The book's got mini-series written all over it.
I've always been fascinated by cases where people claim to have been brainwashed or who were in cults. Although not a cult, the SLA has some similarities and I've been intrigued by Patty Hearst, even more so when I read that Chris Hardwick is engaged to her daughter and will therefore have her as a mother in law some day. This book provide the full bizarre story and further convinced me that Patty was responsible for her own actions and shouldn't have had her sentence commuted or been pardoned. She just seems like a leftist psycho. She had plenty of opportunities to leave and didn't and chose to take part in the group's criminal activities. She was pardoned because of her money and name and connections.
The book starts off a little slow, with biographical sketches of people before you know who they are and why you should care. Once Patty is kidnapped everything picks up.
The book also showed the utter craziness that was the 70s and made me think about some the stuff going on now with people trying to kill cops and a rising socialist movement. In the midst of this case, there was also the Manson family, two assassination attempts on President Ford within three weeks of each other and both by women, the Jim Jones massacre, etc. Jim Jones offered to run the food bank the Hearst family set up as one the ransom demands. One of the Ford's would be assassins worked as the bookkeeper for the food bank. It's all just very strange.
The writing was quite good - it didn't over sensationalize and was even-handed. I will likely check out some of his other books.
The book starts off a little slow, with biographical sketches of people before you know who they are and why you should care. Once Patty is kidnapped everything picks up.
The book also showed the utter craziness that was the 70s and made me think about some the stuff going on now with people trying to kill cops and a rising socialist movement. In the midst of this case, there was also the Manson family, two assassination attempts on President Ford within three weeks of each other and both by women, the Jim Jones massacre, etc. Jim Jones offered to run the food bank the Hearst family set up as one the ransom demands. One of the Ford's would be assassins worked as the bookkeeper for the food bank. It's all just very strange.
The writing was quite good - it didn't over sensationalize and was even-handed. I will likely check out some of his other books.
Fascinating read about Patty Hearst, the SLA, and the unraveling of '60s idealism. This is almost a companion piece to Season of the Witch.
Going into this book my knowledge of Patty Hearst was -- related to the newspaper mogul, kidnapped by SLA, robbed a bank.
Reading this book it is so hard to believe that some of these things could have happened, it shows how different 1970s America was from today. I was surprised to learn that so many members of the SLA came to such a tragic end, but after reading what led up to it, it seemed almost inevitable.
This book seemed to drag at times, but I can't really say why I feel that. I liked the biographical sketches of all the major players, but sometimes the descriptions seemed overly detailed so that might have made the book feel longer than it was.
Reading this book it is so hard to believe that some of these things could have happened, it shows how different 1970s America was from today. I was surprised to learn that so many members of the SLA came to such a tragic end, but after reading what led up to it, it seemed almost inevitable.
This book seemed to drag at times, but I can't really say why I feel that. I liked the biographical sketches of all the major players, but sometimes the descriptions seemed overly detailed so that might have made the book feel longer than it was.
Meh. It was a well written account of what happened, and there were some wild parts to read about considering I didn't know much of the story, but overall I was kind of bored with this one. Maybe I would have been more interested if I had been alive when it happened? Who knows.
You ask me, and no one did, but it sounds like Patty Hearst was a master manipulator.