American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst

Synopsis: Before OJ Simpson, the 1970’s brought us the REAL trial of the century involving Patty Hearst. Hearst was living a privileged, if not particularly remarkable life in 1974. The granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, her family was among the wealthy and powerful of California. She was a nineteen year old student at Berkely, living with her fiancée Steven Weed when she was abducted from her apartment at gunpoint by a small band of self styled revolutionaries identified as the Symbionese Liberation Army. The story gets progressively crazier as Patty ostensibly becomes a convert of the radical group, participates in a violent bank robbery, then spends a year on the run from the FBI before her apprehension in September 1975. As she goes to trial, debate rages! Is she a victim? Or is she a radical wanna-be who needs to pay the price for her crimes?

Review: Let’s be clear from the start. If you can’t make a riveting book out of a story this batshit crazy, you shouldn’t be writing. Fortunately, Jeffrey Toobin takes an immense amount of detail and moves it along like a high speed train. The story is true, to the extent that these big events happened. Hearst was kidnapped. She robbed a bank. But the truth regarding her agency is more elusive. She claimed to have been coerced throughout her ordeal, but Toobin is, respectfully, not buying it. We’ll probably never know just how culpable she was, and it will come as no surprise that she did not cooperate with this author. My observation is that she demonstrated a history of allying herself with male authority figures: she had an affair with, and became engaged to her high school math teacher! (Ew, Good grief) After her relatively brief incarceration, she rapidly married a policeman who had been part of her security detail while on bail. With that history, it’s not much of a stretch to believe she is just a chameleon-like individual who conveniently adapts to her surroundings. Toobin provides some persuasive arguments to support his idea that Hearst was a willing participant. The jury must have agreed, as it took less than 24 hours to reach a guilty verdict.

Rating: 4/5

Recipe: Continuing the “you just can’t make this up” theme, one of the SLA members went on the lam after Patty Hearst’s arrest, moved to Minnesota adopting a new name of Sara Jane Olson. She married a doctor, had three kids and became a church going soccer mom. In 1998, she was featured on America’s Most Wanted and was arrested. To raise money for her legal defense fund, she published and sold a cookbook titled Serving Time: America’s Most Wanted Recipes. Sadly it’s out of print or I might have had the chance to select a revolutionary recipe! The 1970’s were a strange time in American culinary history. We saw, simultaneously, rising interest in organic and “healthy” food, alongside the introduction of convenience foods like Shake and Bake, or Hamburger Helper. I’m sure that more than one American family watched Patty Hearst on the evening news while eating their hamburger macaroni! Recipe courtesy www.thesaltymarshmallow.com

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef

1 tablespoon ketchup

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 teaspoon hot sauce

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 cups macaroni

3 1/2 cups broth or water

1/2 cup sour cream

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1) Brown the ground beef over medium high heat in a large skillet, and drain fat.

2) Reduce heat to low, and add ketchup, mustard and seasonings, macaroni and broth, and stir to combine

3) Cover and simmer for 12-15 minutes until macaroni is cooked through.

4) Turn off heat, add sour cream and cheese stir until melted and combined.