Above / Anderson’s Bookshop will host an event for Jeffrey Toobin as he discusses his new book, American Heiress, at Meiley-Swallow Hall, located at 31 S. Ellsworth on the campus of North Central College.
The incredible story of Patty Hearst’s 1974 kidnapping is stranger than fiction, and all the astonishing details are revealed in Jeffrey Toobin’s new book, American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst. Toobin, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, legal analyst for CNN, and bestselling author, explores the exploits of Hearst’s adventure and its place in American culture.
Toobin will discuss his new book at a very special Anderson’s Bookshop event at 7PM on Monday evening, August 15. This program will take place at Meiley-Swallow Hall, 31 S. Ellsworth, on the campus of North Central College, in Naperville. Former Federal Prosecutor Dan Purdom, an attorney with the Chicago-based firm, Hinshaw & Culbertson, will serve as the event moderator.
Tickets are available with the purchase of the author’s featured book at Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave., in Naperville. Customers can also visit www.andersonsbookshop.com to secure their book and admission ticket.
American Heiress
From New Yorker staff writer and bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin, comes the definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history.
On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre “Tania.”
The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing—the Hearst family trying to secure Patty’s release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the bank security cameras capturing “Tania” wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Patty’s year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term “Stockholm syndrome” entered the lexicon.
The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, American Heiress thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. American Heiress examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors’ crusade.
Or did she?
Best-selling author Jeffrey Toobin
Jeffrey Toobin is the bestselling author of The Oath, The Nine, Too Close to Call, A Vast Conspiracy, and The Run of His Life, which was made into the critically acclaimed FX series American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the senior legal analyst at CNN.
Anderson’s Bookshops
Sponsoring this upcoming program is Anderson’s Bookshop, specializing in book sales, author events, booksignings, and building a sense of community, learning and fun. The store has been helping Naperville readers for six generations. Based in downtown Naperville, the store has grown with the community. Additional locations include downtown Downers Grove, at 5112 Main Street (630) 963-2665 and La Grange, 26 S. La Grange Road, (708) 582-6353.
To keep updated about other Anderson’s events, please visit www.andersonsbookshop.com.
