American Woman (novel)

American Woman is a 2003 novel written by the American writer Susan Choi,[1] based on the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army. [2][3]

American Woman

Plot

Japanese-American Jenny Shimada (based on the real-life radical Wendy Yoshimura) is a former radical on the run from the FBI. At the request of her friend Rob Frazer (based on Jack Scott, she agrees to help shelter fugitives Yvonne (based on Emily Harris), Juan (based on William Harris), and Pauline (based on Patty Hearst) after they mistakenly give up the location of their revolutionary cadre (based on the Symbionese Liberation Army).

Reception

American Woman was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction [4] and received positive acclaim from critics. Joan Didion said, "Susan Choi…proves herself a natural—a writer whose intelligence and historical awareness effortlessly serve a breathtaking narrative ability. I couldn't put American Woman down, and wanted when I finished it to do nothing but read it again."[5] Sven Birkerts (The New York Times Book Review) said, "American Woman becomes a love story of sorts. It takes us through a peculiar, psychologically instructive cycle, moving from the sensationalism of the daily news, to the convoluted group psychology of four differently idealistic but misguided souls struggling for their survival, to the subtlest tropisms of the heart's retrospective longing."[6]

References
  1. ISBN 0-06-054222-5
  2. Emmanuel Sampath Nelson. (2005). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American. ISBN 0313330603. Page 455.
  3. Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature. (2015). ISBN 1438140584.
  4. https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/susan-choi
  5. https://www.susanchoi.com/american-woman
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/books/the-safe-house.html


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