20. Patty’s Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America by William Graebner

Category: 50 Books

20. Patty’s Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America by William Graebner

This was some fascinating reading. It wasn’t just another book about the Patty Hearst debacle. It was way more than that. It was more like a cultural history of the ’70s using P.H. as a catalyst, (is that the right word?) for the ’80s and it’s New Conservatism and it’s Ronald Reagan.

Like I said, this isn’t just a book about P.H. and her life and times with the SLA. The author does a good job of giving the reader an overview of what happened, but the main point of the book is to take that situation and explain how it happened (mostly the outcome of the trial) and compare/contrast it to everything else that was going on at the time, things like: Korean/Vietnam POWs, Dr. Spock’s child rearing books, cults, religion, 1960s revolutions, loads of psychology… there are a ton of things discussed in this book and none of them are boring.

He spends most of the book (or maybe half?) on the trial itself. I was glad of that because it seems like the trial is glossed over a lot, or that it gets overlooked or something, but not here.

The only negative thing I can say about the book is that it’s written a bit academically, so it seems that maybe the author’s personality isn’t expressed? I’m not explaining that very well. The book was filled with cultural references but also it was a little dry. I would have appreciated some humor. Maybe not humor, but snark. And not snark for snark’s sake (I mean, gee, how hard is it to make fun of the ’70s?), because I think with this author the snark would be awesome and well-informed. Or maybe there was some in there and I missed it because the book was too busy making me think.

It took me a bit longer to read this book (and it’s not a large book) because it was just jam full of facts and notes. At times it was difficult for me to take it all in. I’d have to set the book down and do something else. And I can’t even say that’s a bad thing, because I’d find myself at work thinking about book all, “How on earth could any jury not have gotten stuck on reasonable doubt?!” or “I’ve never thought about it before but, YES, America DOES love escapees!” And we do! I thought about that all day at work yesterday.

I went from thinking about how many movies about prison breakouts we have (there’s even a show called Prison Break, right?), and how we even make the good guys out to be the bad guys so that we can cheer the bad guys who are trying to escape from prison, to thinking about Arkham Asylum in the Batman comics/movies/universe and how if the bad guys didn’t escape from Arkham then there’d be little point in Batman. And not only those senarios, but what about car chases? And then to try to break it down into it’s simplest form, you have one individual break out of the authority of another individual.

So while it’s not a simple read, I’d still say it’s a great read. By far one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a long time. Thank you, Mr. Graebner, for writing such a thought-provoking book.

 

My coworkers have been making fun of me for reading this. They like to give me a hard time about my true crime and P.H. obsession. But yesterday when I finished the book I put it on the new release shelf (even though it came out last year) to see if anyone else would check it out. Within 5 minutes a lady came up and checked it out. BOOSH. I did a little gloating.

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