American Woman : A Novel

Succinctly based on the 1974 SLA kidnapping of Patricia Hearst and its aftermath, Choi has played out this tragic but intensely credible bit of American history in the form of a series of character studies of those involved. The main character Jenny is a Japanese American girl involved with the radical groups who struck out against the Vietnam War, the hypocrisy of a democratic America, and the abuse of the police in neglecting the poor people of this country. Chois Jenny makes us re-examine the motivation that perpetrated the radicals of that period and if this book has no other result than to cause us all to re-think the important role of students who questioned the state of the Union, then that raised flag would be sufficient. But this finely wrought novel goes beyond that exploratory surgery and finds analogies to the reactions to the interment of the Japanese during WW II (Jennys father was one of those interred and greatly influenced her perception of right and wrong in America), to the effect of isolation (read imprisonment/segregation) on young minds at odds with the status quo, to the power of bonding between individuals whose common needs may in fact be disparate.

AMERICAN WOMAN is a slow read: Choi knows how to create that pregnant ennui that encapsulates feral individuals awaiting the backlash of their actions. But during those slow pages Choi manages to spread her canvas on the page and paint immaculate images of nature at rest and at fury. In the end she gives us a group of people not all of whom we can admire (or even care for), but at the same time she molds thoughtful minds that accept abuse because of their beliefs, who continue to foster dreams against all plausible odds. And just when you may tire of the shenanigans of Chois cast, you are reminded that this story on a different level DID happen. Stay with this book to the end and you will embrace or perhaps even question your own idealistic youth that dwells back there someplace in the 1970s.

Chois writing is exceptional - it is weighted by a hard lyricism, the kind that feels practical and beautiful at once. The characters are fully imagined and engaging. Even Pauline, who is at first overshadowed by her captors/comrades, becomes astoundingly real. Jenny, though, is Chois real accomplishment: she is a woman who embraces the radical politics of class and yet has the strength to question them. Intelligent, independent, somehow both a pragmatist and an idealist, she is a memorable creation that gives this novel a vibrancy it might not have had otherwise.

I highly recommend this novel for anyone looking for a thought-provoking and skillfully told novel. Those who are looking for something fast-paced should steer clear, however, since the strength of this novel lies more in quiet moments than in action.

Second, I have to agree with the reviewer who says that Choi captures absolutely none of the flavor of the 1970s. It seems to me that Choi may have made the decision to avoid period touches altogether, worried as she might have been that they would ring false. However, the result of this compromise is a book with no period character whatsoever. Our sole markers of the era are occasional references to the date and the presence, in a supporting role, of an old VW Bug. I dont mean the book should be clotted with popcult references, like Stephen King, but the sense I got is that Choi didnt even bother to check out what was on TV, on the radio, or what was in the news. The false sense is given of history on a momentous scale--VIETNAM! NIXON! WATERGATE! Not only does this avoid the sort of minor quotidian stuff that really would have underlined the existence and background of these petit-bourgeois revolutionaries manque, but it seems lazy.

Some details seem just flat-out wrong. Roof parties in Berkeley? Not that I recall, but maybe Im wrong.

The writing is OK. Choi is good when she keeps it simple, she has quite a dry sense of humor that she doesnt use nearly enough. There are altogether too many creative-writing-y reveries in the book--theres one about matches, you know, paper matches, that had me howling--that should have been blue penciled right away.

Anyway, this book is OK. You want to like it because it is, as another half-hearted reviewer put it, so earnest and heartfelt. On the other hand, the book unfolds so narrowly, you wonder why Choi selected such sweeping source material, rich with so much possibility, if all she intended to do was write a claustrophobic little character study. You can see her shoving intriguing possibilities to the sidelines to concentrate on the frankly boring relationship between Jenny Shimada and "Pauline" (the Patty Hearst character). Who cares!, I wanted to shout. Tell me more about the cadre! Tell me more about their goals. Are they ridiculous? Are they righteous? Is it ambiguous? Tell me about Rob Frazer. Are his motives selfish? Tell me more about Pauline--about her ambivalence, her relationship not with her old patrician class vs. her new revolutionary vanguard, but with actual people in her lives past and present. How is Jenny a link between the two? Etc.

This is a very well meaning book by a sincere author with some talent. I detect the ham handed interference of an editor, and the effacement of absolutely anything that might suggest, legally, that the book is based on the adventures of Patricia Hearst with the Symbionese Liberation Army leads me to believe that HarperCollins had corporate rather than first amendment lawyers go over the manuscript. Too bad on both counts. Idve loved to see the "real" book.