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American Woman
Susan Choi's first novel, The Foreign Student, was published to remarkable critical acclaim. The New Yorker called it "an auspicious debut," and the Los Angeles Times touted it as "a novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness," naming it one of the ten best books of the year. American Woman, this gifted writer's second book, is a novel of even greater scope and dramatic complexity, about a young Japanese-American radical caught in the militant underground of the mid-1970s.
When 25-year-old Jenny Shimada steps out of the Rhinecliff train station in New York's Hudson Valley, the last person she expects to see is Rob Frazer, a shadowy figure from her previous life. On the lam for an act of violence against the American government, Jenny agrees to take on the job of caring for three younger fugitives whom Frazer has spirited out of California. One of them, the granddaughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate in San Francisco, has become a national celebrity. Kidnapped by a homegrown revolutionary group, Pauline shocked America when she embraced her captors' ideology, denouncing family and class to enlist in their radical cell.
American Woman unfolds the story of Jenny and her charges -- Pauline, Juan, and Yvonne, the remains of the busted revolutionary cadre -- as they pursue their destinies from an old farmhouse in upstate New York back to California. Provocative, suspenseful, and often wickedly comic, the novel explores the psychology of the young radicals -- outsiders all -- as isolation and paranoia inevitably undermine their ideals. American Woman is a tour de force with chilling resonance for readers today.
392 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 19, 2003
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4328 people want to read
About the author
Susan Choi
23 books1,052 followersSusan Choi was born in South Bend, Indiana and was raised there and in Houston, Texas. She studied literature at Yale and writing at Cornell, and worked for several years as a fact-checker for The New Yorker.
Her latest novel, Trust Exercise, was the winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, and was a national bestseller. Trust Exercise was also named a best book of 2019 by The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, ELLE, Bustle, Town & Country, Publishers Weekly, The Millions, The Chicago Tribune, and TIME.
Her first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, and her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.
With David Remnick she co-edited the anthology Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker, and her non-fiction has appeared in publications such as Vogue, Tin House, Allure, O, and The New York Times and in anthologies such as Money Changes Everything and Brooklyn Was Mine.
A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, she lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, Pete Wells and their sons Dexter and Elliot
Her latest novel, Trust Exercise, was the winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, and was a national bestseller. Trust Exercise was also named a best book of 2019 by The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, ELLE, Bustle, Town & Country, Publishers Weekly, The Millions, The Chicago Tribune, and TIME.
Her first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, and her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.
With David Remnick she co-edited the anthology Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker, and her non-fiction has appeared in publications such as Vogue, Tin House, Allure, O, and The New York Times and in anthologies such as Money Changes Everything and Brooklyn Was Mine.
A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, she lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, Pete Wells and their sons Dexter and Elliot
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 253 reviews
August 21, 2008
This book has an incredibly interesting premise - a fictionalized account of Patty Hearst's life as a fugitive, told through the perspective of a fellow radical/ activist Wendy Yoshimura (called Jenny Shimura in the Book) - but there are some serious problems in the execution of the story. Several passages drone on with internal narratives focused on infinitesimal details, which actually serve to draw the reader away from the characterization of the protagonists instead of giving profound insights into their thoughts and feelings. More minor characters end up being more interesting - Miss Dolly and Jenny/Wendy's father, for instance - because they retain some mystery. I am glad to have read this book, and to have learned more about this fascinating episode in American culture, but Choi would have benefited from some serious editing.
March 2, 2024
This book is a slow burning, evocative and creepily rendered retelling of the infamous Patty Hearst kidnapping. Professor Choi chooses to narrate the story with the voice of the stubborn Jenny Shimada, who is a forlorn, but dangerously subtle revolutionary also on the lam from the law.
Jenny's shadowy cast of characters- heiress Pauline, mentor Fraser, lover William, fellow abductors Juan and Yvonne, and finally Jim Shimada, her father, also a former political prisoner of Manzanar round out this carefully taut and suspenseful narrative that is part lonely character study, sexuality, and hidden depths of violence.
Jenny's shadowy cast of characters- heiress Pauline, mentor Fraser, lover William, fellow abductors Juan and Yvonne, and finally Jim Shimada, her father, also a former political prisoner of Manzanar round out this carefully taut and suspenseful narrative that is part lonely character study, sexuality, and hidden depths of violence.
July 26, 2007
the patty hearst story, told from the point of view of her asian-american female captor turned partner in crime. a stunningly written book about assimilation, radicalism, female relationships, romantic relationships, road trips, guns, survival, race, class and gender. just fucking great.
August 4, 2009
This is the type of book I typically avoid, but before I had a chance to run I was drawn in by this engrossing account of one fugitive trying to help three more people continue their evasion of the police. I was not far into the book (okay, chapter two) when I realized I was in a fictional account of the Patty Hearst story. For those younger than myself, Hearst is the grandaughter of media giant William Randolph Hearst (see: Kane, Citizen) who was kidnapped by the unknown SLA in 1974, then became devoted to their cause and turned to robbing banks. All but three of the SLA were killed in a shootout and Hearst was arrested about a year later.
But Choi avoids some simple fictionalized version of an already bizarre event (this is a time when the idea of truth being stranger than fiction is clearly true). Instead, the "American Woman" is Jenny Shimada, a Japanese-American who is in hiding because of her interest in bomb making, which has put her boyfriend in jail. Shimada has been avoiding exposure by living in a small town doing renovation work for an older woman. Now she is recruited to help these three and we quickly see that all "radicals" are not cut from the same cloth. While she likes to blow up buildings, she does so when no one is in them and she makes sure they belong to the government. The SLA members have kidnapped an heiress and are as interested in armed warfare as they are about their principles, which seem stretched at best.
Choi does not judge any of her characters and all are especially well drawn. Shimada is a complex person who seems to have it all figured out one minute, and is completely lost the next. In other words, she is a real person (and yes, she too is based on a real person). Pauline, the Patty Hearst of the story, is interesting not because she is supposed to by Hearst, but because we see how someone taken out of their element and thrown into the extreme opposite responds. She goes from pampered college student to bound, blindfolded, and gagged in closet for days. Her relationship with two of her captors is abusive and dependent, yet she is also drawn to Jenny. What she is not drawn to is her past life -- at one point her and Jenny drive by her old house, but she has no desire to return. That part of her life is gone.
Which raises the question of what happens when we do disappear. When they are captured (oops, late spoiler alert for those who did not guess it) they refer to Pauline's year of hiding as "the lost year." But who lost the year? Pauline certainly did not. This plays out as a modern version of if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound? Choi is playing with the idea of how our lives are and are not dependent on others involved with us, others viewing us, and others we pass by in life. While it seems obvious that losing track of others does not mean they have lost themselves, we often make that assumption -- "they fell off the face of the earth." As Choi is showing, life continues even when the circumstances change. Jenny and Pauline disappear for different reasons, their circumstances both change, and they themselves change, but that does not equate with being lost. But it does raises questions about how we define ourselves when those around us who do define us are gone. What makes make Jenny who she is and which is the "real" Pauline.
Choi's prose is full and worth a slow read. The book is cinematic in its layout and she paints clear pictures everywhere she goes. The last section of the book loses some of the hold after the tension has disappeared, but it adds another interesting note to the story in comparing how fame impacts what should be similar situations for two people.
Finally, we can return to Choi's title and spend time defining the two words of the title -- American and woman. In what ways is a Japanese-American raised in Japan for many years and an acknowledged bomber of American government properties an American? As the story unfolds the ideas of "woman" are also explored with a range of options considered. In other words, Choi leaves us a lot to think about.
But Choi avoids some simple fictionalized version of an already bizarre event (this is a time when the idea of truth being stranger than fiction is clearly true). Instead, the "American Woman" is Jenny Shimada, a Japanese-American who is in hiding because of her interest in bomb making, which has put her boyfriend in jail. Shimada has been avoiding exposure by living in a small town doing renovation work for an older woman. Now she is recruited to help these three and we quickly see that all "radicals" are not cut from the same cloth. While she likes to blow up buildings, she does so when no one is in them and she makes sure they belong to the government. The SLA members have kidnapped an heiress and are as interested in armed warfare as they are about their principles, which seem stretched at best.
Choi does not judge any of her characters and all are especially well drawn. Shimada is a complex person who seems to have it all figured out one minute, and is completely lost the next. In other words, she is a real person (and yes, she too is based on a real person). Pauline, the Patty Hearst of the story, is interesting not because she is supposed to by Hearst, but because we see how someone taken out of their element and thrown into the extreme opposite responds. She goes from pampered college student to bound, blindfolded, and gagged in closet for days. Her relationship with two of her captors is abusive and dependent, yet she is also drawn to Jenny. What she is not drawn to is her past life -- at one point her and Jenny drive by her old house, but she has no desire to return. That part of her life is gone.
Which raises the question of what happens when we do disappear. When they are captured (oops, late spoiler alert for those who did not guess it) they refer to Pauline's year of hiding as "the lost year." But who lost the year? Pauline certainly did not. This plays out as a modern version of if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound? Choi is playing with the idea of how our lives are and are not dependent on others involved with us, others viewing us, and others we pass by in life. While it seems obvious that losing track of others does not mean they have lost themselves, we often make that assumption -- "they fell off the face of the earth." As Choi is showing, life continues even when the circumstances change. Jenny and Pauline disappear for different reasons, their circumstances both change, and they themselves change, but that does not equate with being lost. But it does raises questions about how we define ourselves when those around us who do define us are gone. What makes make Jenny who she is and which is the "real" Pauline.
Choi's prose is full and worth a slow read. The book is cinematic in its layout and she paints clear pictures everywhere she goes. The last section of the book loses some of the hold after the tension has disappeared, but it adds another interesting note to the story in comparing how fame impacts what should be similar situations for two people.
Finally, we can return to Choi's title and spend time defining the two words of the title -- American and woman. In what ways is a Japanese-American raised in Japan for many years and an acknowledged bomber of American government properties an American? As the story unfolds the ideas of "woman" are also explored with a range of options considered. In other words, Choi leaves us a lot to think about.
August 15, 2019
"But, they agreed, men had a culture of already-knowing, so that you could never read Marx, you had already read him. You could never have an orgasm for the first time because you already had one each time you had sex. You could never ask directions when driving--you knew where you were, even if you were lost. With men it was a confidence game, and there was nothing about this that wasn't seductive, that didn't make a woman want to play along. But being just among women was something more sweet, the fresh pleasure of coming to things the first time, and of showing their wonder--of not having known, and then knowing."
September 23, 2017
American Woman doesn’t begin or end about a woman. It begins about a man who loved a woman, and whose love she didn’t return; its final line is about a man whose love she is only beginning to return. Further, the protagonist “she” is often nameless, referred to by a pronoun rather than Jenny Shimada, even when she is only just entering a scene.
Titling concerns aside, the book is a mostly engaging meditation on race, identity, family, class, love, loyalty. It follows the story of young fugitive Jenny as she unwillingly hides younger, more violent and arguably more radical fugitives whose fight is less clear, less directed than Jenny's was against the Vietnam War. Susan Choi graces the surface of 1970s radical left-wing politics but never digs beyond—a mention of Vietnam here, a mention of class warfare there, references to racism and bigotry scattered throughout. But it is not a book about politics, and even her characters only seem to understand their intensely passionate views in a youthful, superficial way. It is hard to know what point Choi makes in those moments when we see the ways in which the radicals contradict their own fight, or when we see their subtle realizations that they have impacted little, if any, positive change. It is up to the reader to continue the meditation.
The narrative reveals past, present, and sometimes future moments at once so that we piece together the lives, identities, and thoughts of Jenny and the characters intertwined in her life in bits and pieces as the story progresses. But by the end of the book, everyone, even Jenny, remains something of a mystery—perhaps a melancholic reminder that we can never truly know another person or their story?
Having minimal knowledge of Patty Hearst's kidnapping, I did not realize until I was through the book that I was reading a fictionalized account of that story through the lens of Wendy Yoshimura (Jenny). (Is Hearst's fictionalized self, Pauline, the title character, the "American woman"?) I want to read more accounts, true accounts, and then re-read American Woman. I recommend that order of readings to anyone not deeply familiar with Hearst's story.
Titling concerns aside, the book is a mostly engaging meditation on race, identity, family, class, love, loyalty. It follows the story of young fugitive Jenny as she unwillingly hides younger, more violent and arguably more radical fugitives whose fight is less clear, less directed than Jenny's was against the Vietnam War. Susan Choi graces the surface of 1970s radical left-wing politics but never digs beyond—a mention of Vietnam here, a mention of class warfare there, references to racism and bigotry scattered throughout. But it is not a book about politics, and even her characters only seem to understand their intensely passionate views in a youthful, superficial way. It is hard to know what point Choi makes in those moments when we see the ways in which the radicals contradict their own fight, or when we see their subtle realizations that they have impacted little, if any, positive change. It is up to the reader to continue the meditation.
The narrative reveals past, present, and sometimes future moments at once so that we piece together the lives, identities, and thoughts of Jenny and the characters intertwined in her life in bits and pieces as the story progresses. But by the end of the book, everyone, even Jenny, remains something of a mystery—perhaps a melancholic reminder that we can never truly know another person or their story?
Having minimal knowledge of Patty Hearst's kidnapping, I did not realize until I was through the book that I was reading a fictionalized account of that story through the lens of Wendy Yoshimura (Jenny). (Is Hearst's fictionalized self, Pauline, the title character, the "American woman"?) I want to read more accounts, true accounts, and then re-read American Woman. I recommend that order of readings to anyone not deeply familiar with Hearst's story.
April 22, 2017
Reading some of the bored commentaries on this book, I can only say: I feel your pain, confusion and lack of identification with this book. I felt the same when my parents and their friends launched into yet another fond memory of the Great Depression and World War II, and I began to think, "People starving in the streets and throwing themselves off buildings? Millions of young men coming home in boxes, entire countries destroyed, people dead, uprooted or thrown into concentration camps? Those were the Good Old Days?" It's one of those "you had to be there" situations. The United States in the 60´s and 70´s was a place of political and social turmoil so a fictional retelling of the Patty Hearst story may not mean much to someone who didn't live through it.
I was in San Francisco during the Symbionese Liberation Army days, I remember Patty Hearst with them when they knocked over Crocker Bank and seeing the photos in the paper of her holding a rifle, and wondered along with everyone else where they were hiding out. (The best joke involved the San Francisco Giants who attracted at best 2,000 people for some games, if you included the people who worked there. Since most of the stadium, Candlestick Park, would be closed off to the spectators, there was speculation that the SLA were hiding out in the upper deck. They weren't but it was a good guess...)
The key thing that this book captured for me was this sentiment that the times of violent revolution were over, the Weathermen were all dead or hiding and no one had much patience with the Johnny-come-lately SLA, so I liked the idea of a meeting of old and new revolutionaries, those who were tired of the game and those who were joining something that was already over. In a sense, it reflects the present when without a Vietnam or the real possibility of a shocking counter-culture, the protests all begin to seem a bit hollow, even when the protests are valid, and that was the spirit of the book for me, tired revolutionaries wondering whether any of it served vs. zealous latecomers to a battle already lost. And the lesson being, that a zealot with a gun is still dangerous, even if they are a little late arriving.
I was in San Francisco during the Symbionese Liberation Army days, I remember Patty Hearst with them when they knocked over Crocker Bank and seeing the photos in the paper of her holding a rifle, and wondered along with everyone else where they were hiding out. (The best joke involved the San Francisco Giants who attracted at best 2,000 people for some games, if you included the people who worked there. Since most of the stadium, Candlestick Park, would be closed off to the spectators, there was speculation that the SLA were hiding out in the upper deck. They weren't but it was a good guess...)
The key thing that this book captured for me was this sentiment that the times of violent revolution were over, the Weathermen were all dead or hiding and no one had much patience with the Johnny-come-lately SLA, so I liked the idea of a meeting of old and new revolutionaries, those who were tired of the game and those who were joining something that was already over. In a sense, it reflects the present when without a Vietnam or the real possibility of a shocking counter-culture, the protests all begin to seem a bit hollow, even when the protests are valid, and that was the spirit of the book for me, tired revolutionaries wondering whether any of it served vs. zealous latecomers to a battle already lost. And the lesson being, that a zealot with a gun is still dangerous, even if they are a little late arriving.
October 8, 2020
Susan Choi just doesn't disappoint. I stumbled across and loved her first novel "The Foreign Student" and went on to read "A Person of Interest" and "Trust Exercise" and now this one. Those others were all 4-star reads for me, but "American Woman" was a 5-star read.
One of Choi's strengths is picking out interesting cultural moments and fictionalizing, as she did with "A Person of Interest" -- influenced by the stories of Ted Kaczynski and Wen Ho Lee -- as well as "American Woman," inspired by the kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the radical left Symbionese Liberation Army.
I can imagine Susan Choi reading about Hearst and finding out that when Hearst was finally apprehended, she was accompanied by a young Japanese woman, Wendy Yoshimura, who ends up being an afterthought in Hearst's story, and wanting to know more about Wendy's story. It's obvious Choi did a lot of research when creating the character of Jenny Shimada, because while the larger story of the group is altered a fair bit in the novel, the smaller story of Jenny and Pauline closely follows the story of the real Wendy and Patty.
Even though I mostly knew how this turned out, and even though I didn't agree with Jenny's actions, I was in suspense as events unfolded, feeling especially tense about the halfway point when real, deadly gun is introduced.
I can see why this garnered a Pulitzer nomination. I recommend anything by Susan Choi, really, but this one I recommend highly.
One of Choi's strengths is picking out interesting cultural moments and fictionalizing, as she did with "A Person of Interest" -- influenced by the stories of Ted Kaczynski and Wen Ho Lee -- as well as "American Woman," inspired by the kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the radical left Symbionese Liberation Army.
I can imagine Susan Choi reading about Hearst and finding out that when Hearst was finally apprehended, she was accompanied by a young Japanese woman, Wendy Yoshimura, who ends up being an afterthought in Hearst's story, and wanting to know more about Wendy's story. It's obvious Choi did a lot of research when creating the character of Jenny Shimada, because while the larger story of the group is altered a fair bit in the novel, the smaller story of Jenny and Pauline closely follows the story of the real Wendy and Patty.
Even though I mostly knew how this turned out, and even though I didn't agree with Jenny's actions, I was in suspense as events unfolded, feeling especially tense about the halfway point when real, deadly gun is introduced.
I can see why this garnered a Pulitzer nomination. I recommend anything by Susan Choi, really, but this one I recommend highly.
August 20, 2008
This book is a fictionalized work about the SLA and Wendy Yoshimura's life. The author's research about the 1970s--its events and both mainstream and radical ideologies--was impeccable, giving great insight into the era. Choi does a great job in developing Jenny's character. I also walked away from the book with a greater understanding of the Patti Hearst story through her portrayal of the character Pauline and a glimpse of what it was like to live in one of the Japanese internment camps through the experiences of Mr. Shimada.
Some questions I have for Choi involve the Juan and Yvonne characters (based on William and Emily Harris of the SLA). Although both characters are supposed to be radical revolutionaries capable of violent behavior, I thought the characters appeared silly when they were in hiding with their exercising, self-imposed rules, and crazy logic. Was it Choi's intention for them to appear this way? Was she trying to show how Jenny saw them? If so, maybe this was why it was so self-defeating for Jenny to realize she wasn't any different from them?
This is a good read. I recommend it.
Some questions I have for Choi involve the Juan and Yvonne characters (based on William and Emily Harris of the SLA). Although both characters are supposed to be radical revolutionaries capable of violent behavior, I thought the characters appeared silly when they were in hiding with their exercising, self-imposed rules, and crazy logic. Was it Choi's intention for them to appear this way? Was she trying to show how Jenny saw them? If so, maybe this was why it was so self-defeating for Jenny to realize she wasn't any different from them?
This is a good read. I recommend it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2021
The premise was promising, but after wading through 25 pages of ridiculously long paragraphs, intense philosophical pondering, and vaguely getting the sense that this is a male predator stalking a woman... maybe... I had forgotten this was supposed to be a re-telling of the Patty Hearst story, but I never would have guessed it from how far I got.
I used to have a rule that if the author hasn't hooked me by 50 pages, I can move on, but I made an exception for this one. Not plodding for another 25 pages of this, sorry.
I used to have a rule that if the author hasn't hooked me by 50 pages, I can move on, but I made an exception for this one. Not plodding for another 25 pages of this, sorry.
September 13, 2020
I am always drawn to fiction (and memoirs) of radical America, especially the experience of living underground in 1970s America. This is an especially good novel, a fictionalized version of real events and individuals, with the ring of truth, written with clarity and insight by someone far too young to have her own experiences of it to draw upon. Excellent.
September 18, 2018
I'm throwing in the towel after reading only a few pages. This is not of the caliber of her two novels that I really, really liked. I'm going to raise their star level, in fact.
June 6, 2018
it's a shame that such an obvious talent has a politically incoherent voice and set of ethics
July 22, 2018
Was really expecting more based on reviews. Too many inconsequential details and time jumps for my taste.
May 6, 2024
Un poco largo y latero, pero dentro de todo no es algo que me arrepiento de haber leído.
Una vez terminado me enteré que está basado en hechos reales, lo que me dejó con ganas de saber más del contexto político y los ideales del movimiento que secuestró a la protagonista. Antes de eso, se me había hecho muy basico. Este "grupo terrorista" se me hacía banal, con ideas de antiracismo y machismo tan basico que terminan perpetuandolo. Pensé que era simpleamente la forma en que la escritora quería construir sus personajes pero ahora me pregunto ¿cuanto de esto realmente eran los ideales del grupo en la vida real? ¿es esta la vision de los gringos del comunismo de paises tercermundistas? ¿la escritora es facha?
Tantas preguntas.
De todas formas me sorprende que haya sido finalista del premio Pulitzer. Siento que es una lectura que se me quedó coja. En muchos aspectos sentí que era muy gringo y blanco (en un mal sentido).
Una vez terminado me enteré que está basado en hechos reales, lo que me dejó con ganas de saber más del contexto político y los ideales del movimiento que secuestró a la protagonista. Antes de eso, se me había hecho muy basico. Este "grupo terrorista" se me hacía banal, con ideas de antiracismo y machismo tan basico que terminan perpetuandolo. Pensé que era simpleamente la forma en que la escritora quería construir sus personajes pero ahora me pregunto ¿cuanto de esto realmente eran los ideales del grupo en la vida real? ¿es esta la vision de los gringos del comunismo de paises tercermundistas? ¿la escritora es facha?
Tantas preguntas.
De todas formas me sorprende que haya sido finalista del premio Pulitzer. Siento que es una lectura que se me quedó coja. En muchos aspectos sentí que era muy gringo y blanco (en un mal sentido).
April 29, 2020
Very interesting read, made me review that time period.
August 31, 2020
I think this is what people mean when they say a book is "intensely psychological."
September 30, 2025
I would of given it closer to a 3.5, it was a interesting and intense story line but lacked a good pace with some parts feeling either too long or too rushed.
December 29, 2021
NOTES:
Why are instants of reunion so empty? Perhaps because they are too anticipated, too muffled already at the moment of their coming with every previous imagining to make any mark of their own.
The gift of inconspicuousness is rarely given to those who most need its protection.
She has avoided thinking of him for so long that her uncomfortably exhaustive knowledge of his particularities is returning too late.
They’d known nothing better seized attention than violence, and that the rightness of theirs would be obvious, dedicated as it was to saving lives. They’d meant to persuade the most hawkish, resistant Americans, and been sure that they could—but after she’d gone underground Jenny realized they’d never known quite what they faced. They had known only like-minded people.
The kidnappers were a revolutionary cadre that nobody had heard of before, but they claimed kinship to a long list of better-known threats, like the Weather Underground and the Black Panther Party.
If William was right—if Watergate had made mainstream Americans more sympathetic to radicalism—something like this would exhaust that new sympathy quickly.
“You can’t strip our acts of their context and say they were crimes, and at the same time strip something like Vietnam of its crime, and call it a legitimate venture.” “Vietnam was a war. A distinct body of law applied to it.” “That doesn’t make it right.” “No, but your case will be decided on law.”
“I hope you weren’t expecting me to tell you that there’s some kind of Watergate amnesty for the government’s enemies. Your only advantage is the stuff that you know. You had a large circle of friends when you lived in Berkeley. Your boyfriend was convicted of bombing draft offices. At the time they were claimed by something called the People’s Army and no one believes that was just him alone, or even just him and you. If you surrender and offer no information you’re going to get a very hostile reception.”
There was a tape with the victim’s voice on it. “They’ve chosen me as a symbol of the problems of capitalism, Mom, Dad, and I think if you try you can see what their point is.” The victim detailed—clearly reading, her voice strangely girlish yet dull—the demand: that a week’s worth of “good, healthy food” be distributed to every California resident whose annual income was below the poverty line, or who suffered some form of social marginalization, or otherwise verifiably poor. Every person in need must be fed.
The girl’s nervousness seemed to alternate now with a different, peeved tone. “These people want you to know they’re not crazy. Don’t try to make them look crazy. Their message is a political message, it’s about poverty and the problems of capitalism, and I’m a symbol of all that, as they said. They are fulfilling the conditions of the Geneva Conventions . . . in accordance with the Codes of International War.”
“Today is April 3, 1974. I have been given the following choice: to be liberated to rejoin my family, or to join these comrades in their battle. My decision is made: I will stay with these comrades forever, because theirs is the only just battle there is. They are my family. My old family did not care for me; this new family does. My old family did not care for the poor; this new family does.” To go with her new life the girl had taken a new name: Pauline.
“I know that you’re just being nice,” she told him, “but we’re struggling for our brothers and sisters who’ve never had what we all got at birth, just for being born white. In terms of all that this is so self-indulgent.”
She knew the fugitive life worked much better when you avoided reference to the future.
Juan said suddenly. “Quit this ‘I’m in retirement’ attitude. You’ve got the chops. And you’ve got a brown skin.” “What does that have to do with it?” “You owe your people your leadership. You can’t go denying your race. You don’t just owe the revolution in general, you owe your people in particular.” “Human beings are my people.” “But that’s denying your race!” “Just because I’m a Japanese woman, you can’t define me in terms of just that. And I’m not in retirement. I don’t know what you mean when you say that.” “I don’t see you lifting a finger for the revolution.” “How about what I’m doing right now, devoting myself to a madman like you?”
“All I’m saying,” Juan said, “is your skin is a privilege. Your Third World perspective’s a privilege.”
She’s still got to learn that there’s no substitute for a Third World perspective like yours. Brown, yellow, black, red: those are four things that she’ll never be. And she isn’t just white, she’s a filthy rich white. Y and I are from the Midwest, and I’m not saying our town wasn’t racist, or that we don’t have a taint that we’ll never repair. But at least we’re blue-collar. We can relate to working brothers and sisters all over the world. Pauline’s a big step behind us that way, and she’d like to pretend that she isn’t. That’s why you’re a good lesson. She sees your reality and knows that she won’t ever know it. Like I tell her, she can’t kill what she is. She can only atone.”
“Her consciousness is our responsibility. It’s up to us to undo the wrong thinking she’s done all her life.” “But it’s wrong to condemn her because of her background! She can’t be faulted for where she comes from. That’s as bad as racism.”
“My dad did the same thing. But in World War II, not Vietnam. He was angry that the government put all the Japanese people in prison.” “Who put all the Japanese people in prison?” “The government. After Pearl Harbor. Not prison, but a camp that was just like a prison. Even if you were an American citizen, if your parents or grandparents were Japanese you got put into prison because you might be a spy. We were at war with Germany and Italy too, but if you were German or Italian that was fine. It was just the Japanese that got put into camps.” “I never heard that in school.” She shrugged. “They never teach it.” “You’re shitting me, right?” “No. I’m not.” She threw back another long draught of beer. “How much do they teach you in school about slavery?” “Right on,” Thomas grinned. “They don’t teach us shit about that.
Her discovery of what he’d endured was the beginning of her discovery of history and politics, of power and oppression, of brotherhood and racism, and finally, of radicalism; but it only drove them to fight with each other. As she grew increasingly involved in the antiwar movement she and her father fought with increasing fury, but not increasing complexity—never about issues, never about the war itself, only about her arrogance, or perhaps it was her stupidity, or her naivete, in daring to oppose it.
In spite of how well she had done on the tests, the Stockton psychologist had put her back three grades, perhaps to make a point about the superiority of American versus Japanese schools.
Radicalism, Jenny thought sometimes, was like Catholicism, with its extreme self-referentiality, its strict liturgy, its all-explaining view of the world, its absolute Satan, and its deadly sins, of which surrender was one—the very worst, arguably.
That had taken her so long to learn: that you could end awkward moments by holding your tongue. Oh, the tongue!—which she so often thought of now that she’d returned. The tongue that had been so shy when it met William Weeks and then so voracious once he’d finished with it. Not just voracious to prosecute wrongs but to change standard vision, to challenge as William would challenge, to hammer on innocent comments, make people think twice, knock away their complacence.
More and more she thought of revolution not as mustered force that might topple The System, but as a delicate process of changing individual minds, or as the rare chance to try.
In their group they had been discussing the problem of women’s role in the revolution, and had finally opened their eyes to the fact that everywhere in the world, women followed. Even history’s most notable women revolutionaries were the helpmeets to more-worshipped men.
Jenny didn’t know this, but when she was a little girl he’d dreamed of moving with her to New York. He’d thought it was the place he could teach her to be a citizen of the world, a Universal Human. Neither American nor Japanese, but New Yorker—it was a romantic idea, he knew. Being San Franciscan or Los Angelean never held the same promise for him.
He’d always associated the journey East with the final achievement of American belonging, sheared free of ethnicity. He saw it as something to be sheared free of, yes. Yet they never did make the trip East, or rather, they went backwards, to the wrong East, Japan.
As much as she’d thought she was fighting for justice, perhaps what she’d wanted was less justice than vengeance—because justice wasn’t an eye for an eye, an act of violence to match acts of violence. Even if the violence was planned to occur late at night, when not a janitor roamed the long halls. Even if it was staged as a symbol. She had never believed in violence as a provocation, as a means to incite revolution by inciting the government to repress its own people.
But nevertheless she’d believed in violence—as the only reliable way to seize people’s attention. As a means toward enlightenment. And, perhaps, as a way to wreak vengeance; she feared this about herself now, as she seethed in her cell.
Afterwards she’d so urgently tried to refute: that a passion for rightness was never enough, that one’s every attempt would be futile. That in the end the only way to protest was by simply removing oneself from the world.
In the past, with William, she’d believed high intentions gave her the right to use violence; the same violence she abhorred in her government, and even among other comrades whose aims weren’t sufficiently pure. But it wasn’t intentions, however lofty or petty, that mattered, but how things turned out.
Jenny’s anger at her nation’s abuses; the patriotic American’s anger at subversives like her. The anger of the young men who’d risked their lives fighting and come home to be spat on by peers. The anger of the Vietnamese—although it was hard to know, caught up in the rage and confusion at home, if the Vietnamese were most rightly described as “angry.”
She felt like a token for the first time in her life. “The model minority,” the one extended privileges as an example to the rest of her less worthy kin—she thought of Thomas again, Thomas who was honest and loyal and open and who perhaps all his life, if the world didn’t embitter and ruin him, would be rewarded for being better than expected, for not being a “typical black.”
Selflessly, rationally, always bearing in mind that the work of the struggle is more important than the trials of the heart, William offered her everything he could give from his own prison cell but his previous love. She received the same love he extended to all humankind. He never upbraided her for leaving him, and this rationality of his, whether a put-on or not, was another shocking loss, though she knew it was enormously selfish to want the man that you no longer loved to keep pining for you. He finally, quietly let her go, let three months pass before answering one of her letters. She knew then to stop writing back.
Why are instants of reunion so empty? Perhaps because they are too anticipated, too muffled already at the moment of their coming with every previous imagining to make any mark of their own.
The gift of inconspicuousness is rarely given to those who most need its protection.
She has avoided thinking of him for so long that her uncomfortably exhaustive knowledge of his particularities is returning too late.
They’d known nothing better seized attention than violence, and that the rightness of theirs would be obvious, dedicated as it was to saving lives. They’d meant to persuade the most hawkish, resistant Americans, and been sure that they could—but after she’d gone underground Jenny realized they’d never known quite what they faced. They had known only like-minded people.
The kidnappers were a revolutionary cadre that nobody had heard of before, but they claimed kinship to a long list of better-known threats, like the Weather Underground and the Black Panther Party.
If William was right—if Watergate had made mainstream Americans more sympathetic to radicalism—something like this would exhaust that new sympathy quickly.
“You can’t strip our acts of their context and say they were crimes, and at the same time strip something like Vietnam of its crime, and call it a legitimate venture.” “Vietnam was a war. A distinct body of law applied to it.” “That doesn’t make it right.” “No, but your case will be decided on law.”
“I hope you weren’t expecting me to tell you that there’s some kind of Watergate amnesty for the government’s enemies. Your only advantage is the stuff that you know. You had a large circle of friends when you lived in Berkeley. Your boyfriend was convicted of bombing draft offices. At the time they were claimed by something called the People’s Army and no one believes that was just him alone, or even just him and you. If you surrender and offer no information you’re going to get a very hostile reception.”
There was a tape with the victim’s voice on it. “They’ve chosen me as a symbol of the problems of capitalism, Mom, Dad, and I think if you try you can see what their point is.” The victim detailed—clearly reading, her voice strangely girlish yet dull—the demand: that a week’s worth of “good, healthy food” be distributed to every California resident whose annual income was below the poverty line, or who suffered some form of social marginalization, or otherwise verifiably poor. Every person in need must be fed.
The girl’s nervousness seemed to alternate now with a different, peeved tone. “These people want you to know they’re not crazy. Don’t try to make them look crazy. Their message is a political message, it’s about poverty and the problems of capitalism, and I’m a symbol of all that, as they said. They are fulfilling the conditions of the Geneva Conventions . . . in accordance with the Codes of International War.”
“Today is April 3, 1974. I have been given the following choice: to be liberated to rejoin my family, or to join these comrades in their battle. My decision is made: I will stay with these comrades forever, because theirs is the only just battle there is. They are my family. My old family did not care for me; this new family does. My old family did not care for the poor; this new family does.” To go with her new life the girl had taken a new name: Pauline.
“I know that you’re just being nice,” she told him, “but we’re struggling for our brothers and sisters who’ve never had what we all got at birth, just for being born white. In terms of all that this is so self-indulgent.”
She knew the fugitive life worked much better when you avoided reference to the future.
Juan said suddenly. “Quit this ‘I’m in retirement’ attitude. You’ve got the chops. And you’ve got a brown skin.” “What does that have to do with it?” “You owe your people your leadership. You can’t go denying your race. You don’t just owe the revolution in general, you owe your people in particular.” “Human beings are my people.” “But that’s denying your race!” “Just because I’m a Japanese woman, you can’t define me in terms of just that. And I’m not in retirement. I don’t know what you mean when you say that.” “I don’t see you lifting a finger for the revolution.” “How about what I’m doing right now, devoting myself to a madman like you?”
“All I’m saying,” Juan said, “is your skin is a privilege. Your Third World perspective’s a privilege.”
She’s still got to learn that there’s no substitute for a Third World perspective like yours. Brown, yellow, black, red: those are four things that she’ll never be. And she isn’t just white, she’s a filthy rich white. Y and I are from the Midwest, and I’m not saying our town wasn’t racist, or that we don’t have a taint that we’ll never repair. But at least we’re blue-collar. We can relate to working brothers and sisters all over the world. Pauline’s a big step behind us that way, and she’d like to pretend that she isn’t. That’s why you’re a good lesson. She sees your reality and knows that she won’t ever know it. Like I tell her, she can’t kill what she is. She can only atone.”
“Her consciousness is our responsibility. It’s up to us to undo the wrong thinking she’s done all her life.” “But it’s wrong to condemn her because of her background! She can’t be faulted for where she comes from. That’s as bad as racism.”
“My dad did the same thing. But in World War II, not Vietnam. He was angry that the government put all the Japanese people in prison.” “Who put all the Japanese people in prison?” “The government. After Pearl Harbor. Not prison, but a camp that was just like a prison. Even if you were an American citizen, if your parents or grandparents were Japanese you got put into prison because you might be a spy. We were at war with Germany and Italy too, but if you were German or Italian that was fine. It was just the Japanese that got put into camps.” “I never heard that in school.” She shrugged. “They never teach it.” “You’re shitting me, right?” “No. I’m not.” She threw back another long draught of beer. “How much do they teach you in school about slavery?” “Right on,” Thomas grinned. “They don’t teach us shit about that.
Her discovery of what he’d endured was the beginning of her discovery of history and politics, of power and oppression, of brotherhood and racism, and finally, of radicalism; but it only drove them to fight with each other. As she grew increasingly involved in the antiwar movement she and her father fought with increasing fury, but not increasing complexity—never about issues, never about the war itself, only about her arrogance, or perhaps it was her stupidity, or her naivete, in daring to oppose it.
In spite of how well she had done on the tests, the Stockton psychologist had put her back three grades, perhaps to make a point about the superiority of American versus Japanese schools.
Radicalism, Jenny thought sometimes, was like Catholicism, with its extreme self-referentiality, its strict liturgy, its all-explaining view of the world, its absolute Satan, and its deadly sins, of which surrender was one—the very worst, arguably.
That had taken her so long to learn: that you could end awkward moments by holding your tongue. Oh, the tongue!—which she so often thought of now that she’d returned. The tongue that had been so shy when it met William Weeks and then so voracious once he’d finished with it. Not just voracious to prosecute wrongs but to change standard vision, to challenge as William would challenge, to hammer on innocent comments, make people think twice, knock away their complacence.
More and more she thought of revolution not as mustered force that might topple The System, but as a delicate process of changing individual minds, or as the rare chance to try.
In their group they had been discussing the problem of women’s role in the revolution, and had finally opened their eyes to the fact that everywhere in the world, women followed. Even history’s most notable women revolutionaries were the helpmeets to more-worshipped men.
Jenny didn’t know this, but when she was a little girl he’d dreamed of moving with her to New York. He’d thought it was the place he could teach her to be a citizen of the world, a Universal Human. Neither American nor Japanese, but New Yorker—it was a romantic idea, he knew. Being San Franciscan or Los Angelean never held the same promise for him.
He’d always associated the journey East with the final achievement of American belonging, sheared free of ethnicity. He saw it as something to be sheared free of, yes. Yet they never did make the trip East, or rather, they went backwards, to the wrong East, Japan.
As much as she’d thought she was fighting for justice, perhaps what she’d wanted was less justice than vengeance—because justice wasn’t an eye for an eye, an act of violence to match acts of violence. Even if the violence was planned to occur late at night, when not a janitor roamed the long halls. Even if it was staged as a symbol. She had never believed in violence as a provocation, as a means to incite revolution by inciting the government to repress its own people.
But nevertheless she’d believed in violence—as the only reliable way to seize people’s attention. As a means toward enlightenment. And, perhaps, as a way to wreak vengeance; she feared this about herself now, as she seethed in her cell.
Afterwards she’d so urgently tried to refute: that a passion for rightness was never enough, that one’s every attempt would be futile. That in the end the only way to protest was by simply removing oneself from the world.
In the past, with William, she’d believed high intentions gave her the right to use violence; the same violence she abhorred in her government, and even among other comrades whose aims weren’t sufficiently pure. But it wasn’t intentions, however lofty or petty, that mattered, but how things turned out.
Jenny’s anger at her nation’s abuses; the patriotic American’s anger at subversives like her. The anger of the young men who’d risked their lives fighting and come home to be spat on by peers. The anger of the Vietnamese—although it was hard to know, caught up in the rage and confusion at home, if the Vietnamese were most rightly described as “angry.”
She felt like a token for the first time in her life. “The model minority,” the one extended privileges as an example to the rest of her less worthy kin—she thought of Thomas again, Thomas who was honest and loyal and open and who perhaps all his life, if the world didn’t embitter and ruin him, would be rewarded for being better than expected, for not being a “typical black.”
Selflessly, rationally, always bearing in mind that the work of the struggle is more important than the trials of the heart, William offered her everything he could give from his own prison cell but his previous love. She received the same love he extended to all humankind. He never upbraided her for leaving him, and this rationality of his, whether a put-on or not, was another shocking loss, though she knew it was enormously selfish to want the man that you no longer loved to keep pining for you. He finally, quietly let her go, let three months pass before answering one of her letters. She knew then to stop writing back.
February 25, 2019
I could hardly put this book down. The story is perfectly written and the suspense coils around you on the first page and never lets up
May 4, 2008
I was assigned to read this for a class, which means that I was basically guaranteed to hate it. (I have a bad history with required reading - see Summer of My German Soldier and The Old Man and the Sea)
The story focuses on Jenny Shimada, who is based on a real Japanese-American woman who worked for the SLA in the 70's and was involved in the Patty Hearst kidnapping. American Woman is a fictional account of what happened in the time between Patty Hearst joining her captors and the group being arrested. Hearst is in the book but is referred to as "Pauline" because I guess Susan Choi didn't want to get sued.
The parts of the story where Choi describes the activities of the SLA and how they evade the authorities are really interesting - because of this book, I now know how to travel across the US without getting caught by the feds - but everything else in the book basically sucks. Choi starts out the story from the perspective of some random SLA guy, and then suddenly switches the story to Jenny's point of view. Also, nearly every single character was either obnoxious or anger-inducing. Jenny seems to have been born without a personality, Rico and Yvonne (2 SLA fighters who kidnapped Pauline/Patty) are so annoying with all their "bring down the bourgeois" crap that I kept waiting for someone to punch them in the face, and don't even get me started on Pauline. Here's the thing: the big mystery of the Patty Hearst kidnapping is that no one knows if Patty actually believed in what the SLA preached, or if she was just faking it to survive. You'd think, that if someone was to write a fictional account of the kidnapping, the author would answer this question, right?
Wrong. I never, throughout the entire book, understood why Pauline even got up in the morning, much less knew how she thought or if she really believed in the SLA's ideals. Choi focuses too much attention on Jenny and never lets her audience into Pauline's head - ironically, she was the only one I really wanted to understand.
Also: the random episodes with Jenny's father and how he used to live in a Japanese internment camp were pointless and influenced the plot in no way. I think the only reason Choi even made Jenny's father a character in the story is because she needed to write her crap ending that came out of nowhere.
Honestly, this is basically how the book ends:
Jenny: so I got arrested for kidnapping Pauline, but then I got released after a few months and so I went to reunion at Manzanar with my dad. The end!
When I read that and realized the story was over, it made me want to throw the book into a food processor.
Read for: Freshman Year Seminar
The story focuses on Jenny Shimada, who is based on a real Japanese-American woman who worked for the SLA in the 70's and was involved in the Patty Hearst kidnapping. American Woman is a fictional account of what happened in the time between Patty Hearst joining her captors and the group being arrested. Hearst is in the book but is referred to as "Pauline" because I guess Susan Choi didn't want to get sued.
The parts of the story where Choi describes the activities of the SLA and how they evade the authorities are really interesting - because of this book, I now know how to travel across the US without getting caught by the feds - but everything else in the book basically sucks. Choi starts out the story from the perspective of some random SLA guy, and then suddenly switches the story to Jenny's point of view. Also, nearly every single character was either obnoxious or anger-inducing. Jenny seems to have been born without a personality, Rico and Yvonne (2 SLA fighters who kidnapped Pauline/Patty) are so annoying with all their "bring down the bourgeois" crap that I kept waiting for someone to punch them in the face, and don't even get me started on Pauline. Here's the thing: the big mystery of the Patty Hearst kidnapping is that no one knows if Patty actually believed in what the SLA preached, or if she was just faking it to survive. You'd think, that if someone was to write a fictional account of the kidnapping, the author would answer this question, right?
Wrong. I never, throughout the entire book, understood why Pauline even got up in the morning, much less knew how she thought or if she really believed in the SLA's ideals. Choi focuses too much attention on Jenny and never lets her audience into Pauline's head - ironically, she was the only one I really wanted to understand.
Also: the random episodes with Jenny's father and how he used to live in a Japanese internment camp were pointless and influenced the plot in no way. I think the only reason Choi even made Jenny's father a character in the story is because she needed to write her crap ending that came out of nowhere.
Honestly, this is basically how the book ends:
Jenny: so I got arrested for kidnapping Pauline, but then I got released after a few months and so I went to reunion at Manzanar with my dad. The end!
When I read that and realized the story was over, it made me want to throw the book into a food processor.
Read for: Freshman Year Seminar
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 26, 2018
American Woman is very well written, besides being extremely insightful and thought-provoking from both a psychological development and a political-historic perspective. Though it may seem strange to compare a woman of Korean decent with the achitypical Jewish-American writer, I see many parallels between Choi's book and the writing of Philip Roth. One of these was that the writing style is complex and rich enough to slow me down, something I respect a lot in a book. The language is beautiful and complexly crafted so that I was forced to spend more time thinking about the central themes. Choi's book also reminded me of Roth's The Plot Against America, being a novel based on historical fact which explores the American psyche in mass and individually. American Woman is centers around a group of violent political activists in the late 60s and early 70s that kidnaps the young-adult daughter of a wealthy, well known family. A la Patty Hurst, the woman joins her captors and works with them to rob banks, escape the police, etc. At first I was worried that these characters, being based on real people (perhaps portrayed as they were by the mass media) would be charicature-ish or symbolic. On the contrary, Choi wears the events on which her novel is based as a loose garment, allowing them to provide a basic structure for the development of complex and sympathetic characters and explore issues of radicalism, feminism, revolution, and maturity. She explores in great depth the emotions and thoughts of a woman (Jenny) changing from a self-assured idealistic youth to a more realistic, hardened young adult who accepts consequences and sees her actions in a layered, realistic way. I think that this book struck a particular chord with me because of my experiences over the past three years teaching, especially now that I have decided to leave the "battlefield." In the book, Jenny feels a lot of guilt for wanting beauty and comfort in her life because she has thought for so long of these as unnecessary indulgences. I identify with many of these transitional feelings.
November 13, 2023
I was a junior at UCB and lived in a studio apartment just down the street from the apartment Patty Hearst lived in when she was kidnapped by the SLA in 1974. I was also a political science major and continually argued with myself about how far I was willing to go with my radicalism. So this novel resonated with me a great deal. I thought the author did a great job of examining the internal debates and idiosyncrasies of each of the characters and making it possible for any reader to identify with them a bit. Some of the radicals were too contemptuous of everyone they considered less radical and were too willing to harm innocents if necessary to get their messages across. That pushed me away from them in the 1970's and in this book. But other characters, especially Jenny/Wendy, were people I could understand and root for on some levels. Pauline/Patty seemed very naive and opportunistic in the book and in all my previous understandings of her.
I appreciated the side trips into the Japanese concentration camp experiences of Jenny's father that filled in some of the backstory for the ambivalence Jenny felt about being Japanese or American, but I think Choi spent too much time on this. Her writing in this section was too lengthy and plodding and wasn't really necessary to the already stunning main story.
I appreciated the side trips into the Japanese concentration camp experiences of Jenny's father that filled in some of the backstory for the ambivalence Jenny felt about being Japanese or American, but I think Choi spent too much time on this. Her writing in this section was too lengthy and plodding and wasn't really necessary to the already stunning main story.
January 24, 2016
This was such an intriguing book. I had some difficulty getting into the story at first but once I was able to put all the pieces together, I could hardly put it down. Jenny Shimada is a 25 year old Asian-American who took part in some radical political behavior in her younger days. She is now living a low profile life just hoping for some peace and quiet. A friend from her past, Rob Frazer, has contacted her and wants her to help him out by "babysitting" 3 young radicals that he has brought east from California. The rest of their group have died in a fire set by police. Rob is hoping that by helping the 3, he will get exclusive rights to a book that he wants them to write detailing their activities and their beliefs. Of course, things never go as people plan and this story follows them through what actually happens. Basically, although I'm not totally familiar with the Patty Hurst kidnapping and it's repercussions, this is a fictionalized story about that. I found it to be well written and engrossing.
May 23, 2008
It's not very often that I pick up a book and actually read it based solely on the back cover description. It almost always takes a recommendation from someone I know or overwhelming praise to bring new authors to light. This book is one that I picked up back at Barnes and Noble years ago in the advance readers copies. I have never read any of the books I picked up there, until now. This novel is a historically relevant psychological portrait of young radicals at different points in their lives. They different on methods and beliefs but still manage to feel some connection to each other through their estrangement from mainstream culture. There were many times when I wanted to be able to share the immensely powerful characterizations and descriptions, but they don't stand alone. This book takes a full reading from cover to cover to understand the nuances of these characters and the depth of the prose. I'll be reading more Choi, and wishing I could write like her!
August 26, 2008
Historical fiction usually conjures up visions of sweaty English monarchs, or heaving soldiers reclaiming an embankment in some centuries-old war. But in American Woman, the author expertly recreates the "the patty hearst story" as "the jenny shimada" story. (That is, the story of the young woman who helped to care for Patty Hearst while in hiding.) The vaguely familiar celebrity story quickly becomes a more intimate story about struggle, isolation, justice, friendship, and identity. Those are all big themes, I know--but this author developed them so well that it was like I was considering them for the first time. I would never have picked this book up on my own (thanks, Rachel!), but having read it I believe I will never forget it.
October 8, 2024
This book started off beautifully, mysteriously. But I liked it less with every passing chapter, and I could barely stand it by the end. I liked it when we were getting to know Jenny and Frazer. Once Juan and Yvonne and Pauline entered, these obnoxious brats took over the story and Jenny never really emerged. And it became more and more literally just the Patty Hearst story, a boring tale that’s been written a hundred times. 2.5 stars.
March 24, 2015
Loved it. Riveting, thrilling, AND nuanced. Really got into the political analyses and attempts at understanding radical movements, as well as the particular perspective of the Japanese American woman who was the main character.
First couple chapters lagged a bit, but then it turned into a wild ride until the end!
First couple chapters lagged a bit, but then it turned into a wild ride until the end!
February 27, 2021
I was excited to read this as it's based on the people who kidnapped Patty Hearst and I thought this would be fascinating to delve into the minds of these extremists, but I was pretty disappointed. The plot just seemed to lag and sit there, and I was not really able to connect to the characters and get into their minds.
June 10, 2009
Choi is brilliant at evoking the reasoning and sensibility of her protagonist, based on the character of Asian woman who assisted the SLA (including Patricia Hearst) in their evasion of capture and arrest.
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