American Woman
A Novel

The kidnapping of Patty Hearst in 1974 is the basis for this novel. An heiress named Pauline is kidnapped, and a Japanese-American woman named Jenny Shimada (based on real-life Wendy Yoshimura), on the lam after a bombing to protest the Vietnam War, becomes involved. The two women hide away in an upstate New York safe house while Pauline's kidnappers plot strategy and train themselves as resistance fighters. A New York Times Notable Book for 2003.