Searching for Patty Hearst - A True Crime Novel

Roger Rapoport - Searching for Patty Hearst: A True Crime
Novel





Nov 20, 2023





Roger Rapoport joins Ed Opperman to discuss one of the most
controversial kidnapping cases of the twentieth century; Patty
Hearst.On the night that Patty Hearst  was kidnapped in 1974,
journalist Roger D. Rapoport, was a short drive  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, Searching for
Patty Hearst,  that draws heavily from 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.
 "I wrote this novel because I believed the American public
deserved  nothing but the truth," he says. 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 fiancée 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.








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