I was listening to the podcast Cults by Parcast when I realised that their episode on the Symbionese Liberation Army covered one of the books that’s been on my Overdrive TBR list for a couple of years – American Heiress. After so much time, I can’t remember who introduced the book to me, but I’m pretty sure it’s the true-crime aspect that got me to add it to my TBR list.

American Heiress covers the kidnapping and crimes of Patricia Hearst, the granddaughter of the American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. It talks about her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (which never had enough members to be considered an army), her family’s attempts to save her, and Patricia’s switch and allegiance to the SLA. The book ends shortly after her trial to determine her role in everything.

Patricia’s story is a wild ride. The kidnapping alone is sensational, but the fact that she switched sides, took on the name Tania, and even committed crimes with the SLA made her infamous in her day. I liked that the book tried to give both sides of the story – we probably can’t tell with complete certainty if Patricia was brainwashed as she said, or if she was genuinely a revolutionary, or a mixture of both, but the book does try to give a balanced view. Toobin praises Patricia many times for being smart and determined, but he doesn’t believe everything she says wholesale either.

In terms of sources, Patricia Hearst refused to be interviewed for the book. It’s a pity, but Toobin takes his information from her memoir, Every Secret Thing, her testimony at the trial and other grand juries, FBI summaries of her interviews, her press interviews, as well as her letters, communiques from the SLA, transcripts, and statements that other people gave to investigators. He also took into account photos, recordings and videos. Overall, I think the amount of material used was more than sufficient to write an in-depth and balanced account and I consider the book to be well-researched and engaging.

This was an engrossing piece of non-fiction. It’s centred around Patricia Hearst but it does have a lot of other information about the SLA and the few members that it has. It doesn’t, however, cover more than the background of the early days and formation of the SLA, so if you want more information on that, you may have to look somewhere else. Fans of true crime will definitely want to take a look at this.

P.s. Not related to the book, but I’m considering taking Cults of my podcast list after reading this. There aren’t any glaring errors, but minor things such as describing the kidnapping as going off “without a hitch” when they actually had to scramble for a third car makes me wonder how accurate their accounts of cases are. It’s definitely easy listening but now I’m having second thoughts.