Book description
A fictionalization of the Patty Hearst kidnapping focuses on Jenny Shimada, a Japanese-American woman who helps Pauline and her kidnappers during their stay in a New York State farmhouse.
Why read it?
1 author picked American Woman as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I’m fascinated by novels that treat famous real events from an insider perspective.
In this case, it’s the events following the Symbionese Liberation Army’s kidnapping of Patty Hearst in 1974. Fugitive SLA members, including a character based on Hearst, are sheltered by a former radical, Jenny Shimada (based on Wendy Yoshimura), who is also wanted by the FBI in connection with the bombing of draft offices.
Jenny is a sort of house mother to the volatile fugitives, who hope to write a book while in hiding to raise money for their cause, but inevitably she is drawn into their latest…
From Andy's list on literary with criminal protagonists.
If you love American Woman...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Want books like American Woman?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 96 books like American Woman.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,340
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like American Woman, you might also like...
Foxfire in the Snow
It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
The Main Gate
Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.
Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…
