Synopses & Reviews
It was a story so bizarre it defied belief: in April 1974, twenty-year-old newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst robbed a San Francisco bank in the company of members of the Symbionese Liberation Armyand#8212;who had kidnapped her a mere nine weeks earlier. But the robberyand#8212;and the spectacular 1976 trial that ended with Hearstand#8217;s criminal convictionand#8212;seemed oddly appropriate to the troubled mood of the nation, an instant exemplar of a turbulent era.and#160;With Pattyand#8217;s Got a Gun, the first substantial reconsideration of Patty Hearstand#8217;s story in more than twenty-five years, William Graebner vividly re-creates the atmosphere of uncertainty and frustration of mid-1970s America. Drawing on copious media accounts of the robbery and trialand#8212;as well as cultural artifacts from glam rock to Invasion of the Body Snatchersand#8212;Graebner paints a compelling portrait of a nation confused and frightened by the upheavals of 1960s liberalism and beginning to tip over into what would become Reagan-era conservatism, with its invocations of individual responsibility and the heroic.and#160;Trapped in the middle of that shift, the affectless, zombielike, and#8220;brainwashedand#8221; Patty Hearst was a ready-made symbol of all that seemed to have gone wrong with the sixtiesand#8212;the inevitable result, some said,and#160;of rampant permissiveness, feckless elitism, the loss of moral clarity, and feminism run amok.and#160;By offering a fresh look at Patty Hearst and her trialand#8212;for the first time free from the agendas of the day, yet set fully in their cultural contextand#8212;Pattyand#8217;s Got a Gun delivers a nuanced portrait of both an unforgettable moment and an entire era, one whose repercussions continue to be felt today.
Review
andquot;I enjoyed this and#39;retrospective essayand#39; on the remarkable story of Patty Hearst. . . . Graebnerand#39;s essay offers far more than narrative. It contextualises a story that andlsquo;shocked the nationandrsquo; in its historical context, midway between the permissive radicalism of the 1960s and a backlash that anticipated the new conservatism of the Reagan era. . . . Graebner combines erudition and scholarship with a sense of humour.andquot;
Review
"What makes the book worth reading is not so much the first half, a compelling enough account of Ms. Hearst's kidnapping and subsequent time in the headlines, as the second half: an attempt to put the Hearst affair in the context of an America struggling to emerge from the Vietnam quagmire and the ignominy of Watergate."
Review
and#8220;In that anxious interval between the twilight of the Sixties and the dawn of Ronald Reaganand#8217;s and#8216;Morning in America,and#8217; no story made the nation as uneasy as the crazy and ambiguous ordeal of Patty Hearst. William Graebner sheds new light on that most troubling story, and thereby helps us understand two nations: the terrified America that watched it all unfold, and the more assured and brutal place that it would soon become.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;In an era traumatized by defeat in Vietnam, betrayal in Washington, stagflation, and shockingly violent crimes, the saga of Patty Hearstand#8212;kidnapped heiress turned carbine-toting bankrobberand#8212;was perhaps the most shocking tale of all. William Graebnerand#8217;s rich retelling uses Hearstand#8217;s story to probe one of the central preoccupations of the Seventies: the nature of personal identity. What happened to Hearst fascinated, and continues to fascinate, because it raised the question of what any of us might become in the face of extraordinary circumstances.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;William Graebnerand#8217;s brilliant analysis of Americaand#8217;s struggles over the meaning of Patty Hearst gives us not only new perspectives on the 1970s, on Americansand#8217; fundamental understandings of their world in a bicentennial year that offered little to celebrate, but also on the longing for heroism and the desire for belief in free will that Graebner believes structured the rise of Reagan-era conservatism. This is a masterful work of cultural history.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;In this work, Graebner reconsiders the kidnapping and trial of heiress Patricia Hearst in the context of psychiatry, media, politics, and popular culture in the 1970s. The book is divided into two parts: the first half is a detailed recitation of the kidnapping of Hearst by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, or SLA (an American self-styled urban guerrilla warfare group active in the 1970s); the crimes committed by her; and her trial and conviction. In the second part, titled and#8216;Reading Patty Hearst,and#8217; the author concedes that no one knows why Hearst joined her SLA captors. He cites societyand#8217;s dismay with the chaos of the Nixon administration, the decline of the family, and the survival culture of the day.
Pattyand#8217;s Got a Gun is a well-written, sophisticated speculation of why Hearst was convicted both by the jury and in the court of public opinion at the onset of the Reagan era.and#8221;--
Library JournalReview
andquot;Graebner conducts an intellectual history tour de force that will enrich the scholarship of this period, providing a look into a discrete but revealing episode that exposes the eraand#39;s most fervent concerns.andquot;
Review
"The author provides a compelling look at the 1974 kidnapping. . . . arguing that the entire episode reflected the anxieties of an increasingly anxious nation."
About the Author
William Graebner is the author of many books, including The Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s and Coming of Age in Buffalo: Youth and Authority in the Postwar Era.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Introduction
The Story
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Abducted
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Robberyand#160;
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;The Fire
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Early Reactions
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;The Missing Year
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Arrest
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Trial
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Closing Arguments
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Jury
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Verdict
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Reactions
Reading Patty Hearst
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Fragile Self
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Victim
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Survivor
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Stockholm Syndrome
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Paranoid
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Emerging Conservative Consensus
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Heroes
Notes
Acknowledgments