Examines the life of Patty Hearst who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors' crusade. 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 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 bank security cameras capturing "Tania" wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from basketball star 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 across the country; Patty's year on the lam; and her circuslike trial, 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, Toobin thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times, portraying the lunacy of the half-baked radicals and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst. He 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?--Adapted from dust jacket.

Nervous breakdown nation -- From inside the trunk -- The SLA -- The point of no return -- Prisoner of war -- Not just a bunch of nuts -- Three hundred bald men -- "I'm a strong woman" -- The birth of Tania -- Stay and fight -- Common criminals -- Showdown at Mel's -- Live on television -- Apocalypse on Fifty-Fourth Street -- "The gentlest, most beautiful man" -- Jack Scott makes and offer -- Road trip -- The streets of Sacramento -- Death of a "bourgeois pig" -- Feminist bomb-making -- Freeze! -- "There will be a revolution in Amerikkka and we'll be helping to make it" -- "Your ever-loving momma and poppa care about the truth" -- More excited than scared -- The search for old McMonkey -- The verdict -- "Favoring the rich over the poor".