The Sunday Read: ‘The Kidnapping I Can’t Escape’

On Nov. 12, 1974, Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s father’s childhood
friend Jack Teich was kidnapped out of his driveway in the nicest
part of the nicest part of Long Island. He was arriving home from
work when two men forced him into their car at gunpoint and took
him to a house where they chained and interrogated him.


On the second day of his kidnapping, Jack’s wife, Janet, received
a call from someone demanding a ransom of $750,000, and a few
days later, Janet and Jack’s brother Buddy dropped the money off
at Penn Station under F.B.I. surveillance. The F.B.I. did not
catch the kidnapper, but afterward, he decided to let Jack go.


Jack was home safe. He had survived his kidnapping. But the
actual kidnapping is not what this story is about, if you can
believe it. It’s about surviving what you survived, which is also
known as the rest of your life.