In 1974, a tiny band of self-styled urban guerrillas, calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army, abducts a newspaper heiress, who then takes the guerrilla name 'Tania' and shocks the world by choosing to remain with her former captors. Has she been brainwashed? Why else would such a nice girl disavow her loving parents, her adoring fiance, her comfortable home? Why would she adopt the SLA's cri de guerre, 'Death to the Fascist Insect that Preys Upon the Life of the People'? Soon most of the SLA are dead, killed in a suicidal confrontation with police in Los Angeles, forcing Tania and her two remaining comrades - the pompous and abusive General Teko and his duplicitous lieutenant, Yolanda - into hiding, where they will remain for the next sixteen months. These are the months of Tania's sentimental education. TRANCE, Christopher Sorrentino's mesmerising and brilliant second novel, leaps from the pages of history into satire and myth. It takes the reader on an underground tour across a beleaguered America in the company of scam artists, visionaries, cultists, and a mismatched gang of middle-class militants who typify the guiding conceit of their time, that of self-renewal. Insightful, compassionate, scathing, and moving, TRANCE is a virtuoso performance, placing Sorrentino in the first rank of American novelists.
About the Author
Christopher Sorrentino (born May 20, 1963) is an American novelist and short story writer of Puerto Rican descent. He is the son of novelist Gilbert Sorrentino and Victoria Ortiz. His first published novel, Sound on Sound (1995), draws upon innovations pioneered in the work of his father, but also contains echoes of many other modernist and postmodernist writers. The book is structured according to the format of a multitrack recording session, with corresponding section titles ("Secondary Percussion", "Vocals", "Playback", and so forth).His second novel, Trance (2005), an epic fictional treatment of the Patty Hearst saga, used many of the same experimental techniques as Sound on Sound, but, according to Sorrentino, incorporated them more carefully and subtly into the text. The book was widely praised for its lush descriptions, riveting characterizations and dialogue, imaginative departures, and attention to period detail. Trance ended up on several reviewers' "best" lists, was named a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction, and was longlisted for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2009, Trance was named one of the "61 Essential Postmodern Reads" by the Los Angeles Times.
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