“Roger Rapoport weaves all the ingredients, and his own extensive knowledge of the case, into this gripping, evocative, and suspenseful novel.”
“No question, the most important book about the
whole Patty Hearst episode.”
“Grabs your attention and holds you hostage until the very last page. A brilliant blend of dogged factual reporting and fiction.””
“a fascinating narrative in which the bedrock facts of the story are illuminated by fictional nuances that logically tie up many of the loose strands and controversies. This is a brilliant and compelling book.”
Searching for Patty Hearst:
A Novel
Roger D Rapoport
$24.00 | Lexographic Press
Published January 16, 2024
paperback(320pp):
978-1-958156-02-5
ebook (from Amazon):
978-1-958156-09-4
Available from Ingrams, Baker & Taylor, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all great bookstores.
distributed by
Pathway Book Service
email
“A brilliant and compelling book.”
On February 4th 1974, billionaire heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her home in front of her fiancé. 50 years on, Roger Rapoport returns to the scene and finally gets to the bottom of the whole story.
“the most important book about the whole Patty Hearst episode.”
CIA set up? Inside job? Deliberately chaotic operation?
“The only way to tell this story truthfully, is through fiction”. Rapoport revisits the tale he covered 50 years ago and writes the true crime novel only he could write.
A ‘gripping’, ‘brilliant’ & ‘suspenseful’ novel, Searching for Patty Hearst finally ties the whole 50-year-old story together in one ‘addictive, page-turning’ book.
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The book
The book: Searching for Patty Hearst
On the night that Patty Hearst was kidnapped in 1974, journalist Roger D. Rapoport was a short distance away in his El Cerrito home. He quickly became one of the primary reporters covering the saga as it unfolded in real time. His reporting gave local and national readers a window into one of the most bizarre and polarizing crimes in U.S. history. Now, fifty years later, he has written a novel that draws us back to that time. In this compelling new book, he explores alternative theories of the crime and delves into the complex psychology of many of the key actors in a drama that kept the country riveted. Using the techniques of fiction, Rapoport gives voice to much of the story that fell outside of the bounds of journalistic coverage.
With a wry sensibility and insider knowledge that Rapoport is one of the few people to possess, Searching for Patty Hearst, goes beyond the tabloid headlines to tell the story in all its depth. Rapoport takes on such questions as: Why did Patty participate in the kidnapping of a high school student hours before six of the SLA kidnappers were killed in a firefight with the Los Angeles police department? Did celebrity coroner Thomas Noguchi, whom Rapoport interviewed, mishandle the autopsies of six SLA victims? Why did Patty’s lawyers dump her fiancé Steve Weed as a key witness at her trial at the last minute?
It’s often said that fiction can offer insights into the truth that reporting can’t. If that is the case, the story of Patty Hearst, the SLA, and the kidnapping that carved them into the American psyche just may be told for the first time with Searching for Patty Hearst.
Key facts
It’s often said that fiction can offer insights into the truth that reporting can’t. If that is the case, the story of Patty Hearst, the SLA, and the kidnapping that carved them into the American psyche just may be told for the first time with Searching for Patty Hearst.
Patty Hearst told both SLA member Willie Wolfe and a prison psychiatrist that she dreamed of being kidnapped shortly before February 4, 1974.
Patty Hearst was the first kidnap victim to participate in a bank robbery with her kidnappers.
The battle with the Los Angeles police that took the lives of six SLA members on May 17, 1974 remains the largest firefight ever on American soil.
Patty Hearst was taught how to shoot by her father Randy when she was 9 years old.
Patty Hearst’s math tutor Steve Weed slipped her a geometry final exam that he took from the file of a fellow teacher at Crystal Springs School For Girls. He tutored her on these questions for three hours and she scored 80 percent on the final test.
Patty Hearst walked through picket lines at Safeway during her time as a student at the University of California Berkeley.
Patty Hearst’s mother, a University of California Regent, reappointed to a 16-year term by Governor Ronald Reagan after the kidnapping, did not want her to go to UC Berkeley. She thought Stanford would be a much better idea.
The bank Patty Hearst robbed with the SLA was run by the father of her childhood friend Trish Tobin who visited Patty when she was serving her jail sentence for that bank robbery.
Three months after she was kidnapped Patty Hearst participated in the kidnapping of a 17-year-old Los Angeles area high school student Tom Matthews. Matthews used a hacksaw to remove handcuffs from SLA member Bill Harris. In gratitude Hearst kissed Matthews. After he was freed Matthews said: “Patty was sitting in the back with me, and I kind of remember her almost patting me, comforting me because she’d gone through a similar experience, though much, much worse than what I’d gone through. She was being sympathetic towards me.”
President Bill Clinton’s last official act, two hours before he left office, was to pardon Patty Hearst and his brother.
The Hearst family rejected a $4 million offer to free Patty Hearst.
Patty’s father Randy’s left an estate valued at $1.5 billion
FAQs
What is Stockholm Syndrome?
The term is derived from an event which occurred in Sweden a few months before Patty was kidnapped. There was a bank robbery in Stockholm which involved hostages who were held for 6 days. On release they sympathised and actually raised money for the defence of the people who’d held them hostage. At Patty’s trial her lawyer F. Lee Bailey used the defense that she only became an SLA member, robbed the banks, and wrote the communiques because she was suffering from, what would later be called, Stockholm Syndrome, whereby having been in close quarters with her captors she had formed a psychological bond with them and thus would do whatever they wanted.
What happened to Patty Hearst?
Patrica Hearst is still alive and well. She married someone from her security detail when she was on parole and is a successful dog shower: two of her dogs have won awards at the Winchester dog show. She’s an actor and has campaigned for children’s AIDS foundations.
What happened to Patty Hearst’s kidnappers?
Bill and Emily Harris are still alive. They were convicted twice and freed after serving jail time. On May 17, 1974, the largest firefight ever on American soil (over 9,000 rounds fired) took the lives of Donald DeFreeze, Angela Atwood, Nancy Ling Perry, Willie Wolfe, Patricia Soltysik and Camilla Hall.
What happened to the SLA?
When Patricia Campbell Hearst was kidnapped on Feb 4th 1974, two SLA members were already in prison for killing Mark Foster superintendent of schools in Oakland. Six subsequently died when the LAPD attacked their safe-house in LA. Three weren’t there, Patty, Bill and Emily Harris.
Joseph Remiro who was convicted for the murder of Oakland School Superintendent Marcus Foster is the only SLA member still in prison. He resides at Pelican Bay Prison in Crescent City and has lost eleven appeals for parole.
Why was Patty arrested?
She was arrested and charged with armed bank robbery in San Francisco, kidnapping a high school student in Lynwood and shooting up the streets of Inglewood. She was not prosecuted for driving the getaway vehicle following a Sacramento bank robbery that led to the death of a customer making a deposit of money from her church.