American Woman is a 2003 novel written by American Susan Choi, [1] based on the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army and following events with activists. [2] [3]
A film adaptation of the same name was released in 2019. It is written and directed by Semi Chellas, starring Hong Chau.
Japanese–American Jenny Shimada (based on the radical activist 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) and her husband 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). The novel explores interactions among the group under the tension of enforced isolation in hiding.
American Woman received positive acclaim from critics and it was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. [4] Writer 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]
The San Francisco Examiner said it was a novel of "impressive scope and complexity", ... and “American Woman is a thoughtful, meditative interrogation of...history and politics, of power and racism, and finally, of radicalism.” [5]
It was adapted as a 2019 film of the same name, written and directed by Canadian Semi Chellas, and starring Hong Chau.
Patricia Monique Soltysik was an American woman who was best known as a co-founder and activist in the Symbionese Liberation Army, a far-left militant group based in Berkeley and Oakland, California. She participated in the group's violent activities, including armed bank robbery.
The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army was a small, American militant far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. The FBI and wider American law enforcement considered the SLA to be the first terrorist organization to rise from the American left. Six members died in a May 1974 shootout with police in Los Angeles. The three surviving fugitives recruited new members, but nearly all of them were apprehended in 1975 and prosecuted.
Patricia Campbell Hearst is the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. She first became known for the events following her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was found and arrested 19 months after being abducted, by which time she was a fugitive wanted for serious crimes committed with members of the group. She was held in custody, and there was speculation before trial that her family's resources would enable her to avoid time in prison.
The Black Cultural Association (BCA) was an African-American inmate group founded in 1968 at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, a California state prison, and formally recognized by prison officials in 1969. The primary purpose of the BCA was to provide educational tutoring to inmates, which it did in conjunction with graduate college students from the nearby San Francisco Bay Area. Outsiders were allowed to attend meetings of the BCA, and tutors provided remedial and advanced courses in mathematics, reading, writing, art, history, political science, and sociology. In time, radical political organizations such as Venceremos infiltrated the BCA, giving rise to BCA factions such as Unisight, which eventually gave birth to the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Donald David DeFreeze, also known as Cinque Mtume and using the nom de guerre "General Field Marshal Cinque", was known as the "spokesman" of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small, American far-left group that formed in Oakland, California in 1973. Some analysts suggested he was a figurehead; others said he was the leader. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he dropped out of high school and was involved from the age of 14 in frequent brushes with the criminal justice system. He received generous probation in the late 1960s, leading some sources to suggest he was serving as a police informant to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Nancy Ling Perry was also known as Nancy Devoto, Lynn Ledworth, and Fahizah while a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small leftist terrorist group based in northern California. Considered one of its chief theorists and activists, she died in a shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department at an SLA safehouse in that city.
Wendy Masako Yoshimura is an American still life watercolor painter. She was a member of the leftist terrorist group the Symbionese Liberation Army during the mid-1970s. She was born in Manzanar, one of numerous World War II-era internment camp for Japanese Americans who were forced out of their homes and businesses along the West Coast. She was raised both in Japan and California's Central Valley.
Susan Choi is an American novelist.
Angela DeAngelis Atwood, also known as General Gelina, was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American terrorist group which kidnapped Patricia Hearst and robbed banks. She was killed, along with five other SLA members, in a nationally televised shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Katherine is a 1975 American TV movie written and directed by Jeremy Kagan, and starring Sissy Spacek, Art Carney and Henry Winkler. Intended to portray the time period of the Vietnam War, the title character was loosely based on Diana Oughton of the Weather Underground, who died in the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion when a bomb she was building accidentally exploded. Reviewers have also noted that Katherine also "borrowed from the then-current headlines involving Patty Hearst, another heiress whose exact level of voluntary involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army remained hazy in 1975.
Patty Hearst is a 1988 American biographical film crime drama directed by Paul Schrader and stars Natasha Richardson as Hearst Corporation heiress Patricia Hearst and Ving Rhames as Symbionese Liberation Army leader Cinque. It is based on Hearst's 1982 autobiography Every Secret Thing, which was later rereleased as Patty Hearst – Her Own Story.
Emily Harris was, along with her husband William Harris (1945–), a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American left-wing terrorist group involved in murder, kidnapping, and bank robberies. In the 1970s, she was convicted of kidnapping Patty Hearst.
Stuart Hanlon is an attorney based in San Francisco, California who represented San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr, Geronimo Pratt and members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Semi Chellas is a director, writer, producer who has written for film, television and magazines. She was born in Palo Alto, California and grew up in Calgary, Alberta. She is known for her work on the television series Mad Men and her film adaptation of American Woman based on Susan Choi's novel of the same name.
James William Kilgore is a convicted American felon and former fugitive for his activities in the 1970s with the Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing terrorist organization in California. After years of research and writing, he later became a research scholar and ultimately worked at the University of Illinois' Center for African Studies in Champaign–Urbana.
Thero Lavon Wheeler (1945–2009), aka Bruce Bradley while a fugitive (1973–1975), was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, an American left-wing organization in the San Francisco Bay area. He left the group in October 1973 as he objected to its plans to undertake violent acts. Law enforcement later classified the SLA as a terrorist group.
Mary Alice Siem was a student at the University of California, Berkeley when she became involved in 1973 with a prisoner outreach program at Vacaville Prison. She became the girlfriend of Thero Wheeler, an inmate who escaped in August 1973. He was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an extremist group based in Oakland that was classified as terrorist by law enforcement. It was known for murders, armed robberies and the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst after Wheeler and Siem left the group in October 1973.
"American Woman" is a 1970 rock song by The Guess Who.
American Woman is a 2019 drama film written and directed by Semi Chellas, in her feature directorial debut. It stars Hong Chau, Sarah Gadon, John Gallagher Jr., Lola Kirke, David Cubitt, Jordan Pettle, Richard Walters and Ellen Burstyn. Based on the 2003 novel of the same title by Susan Choi, the film is a fictional account of Wendy Yoshimura, the real-life woman who cared for heiress Patty Hearst after she was abducted.
Jack Scott was an American political activist known for his concern with exploitation of athletes and race relations in sport, the sociology of sport, his association with the Radical Sports Movement of the 1970s, and for involvement with Patty Hearst and fugitives of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA).
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