Rescuing Patty Hearst: Growing Up Sane in a Decade Gone Mad (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Nineteen seventy-four was a bad time to go crazy," reads the gripping first line in this thoroughly unique memoir by Virginia Holman, a frequent contributor to magazines such as Redbook and Self. But despite that sentence and the suggestion of the title (Patty Hearst is a metaphor here, not a character), this work of "creative nonfiction" is extremely personal rather than generational. As with The Liar's Club by Mary Karr (whose Spartan but poetic prose Holman sometimes recalls), the strength of Rescuing Patty Hearst is that it finds universality in a very specific situation and story.

One year after the famous heiress's celebrated kidnapping, in the midst of Watergate and the other turbulent events of America's most misunderstood era, the author's mother retreated with her two daughters to a rustic cabin in rural Virginia, thoroughly convinced that the voices in her head were directing her to establish a field hospital in preparation for a cataclysmic war that never came. The book proceeds to chart Holman's mother's extended and heartbreakingly sad battle with schizophrenia, and its impact on her seemingly typical middle-class American family. The author's response progresses from detached bemusement, to horror and revulsion, and to a warm understanding and acceptance without ever becoming callous, maudlin, or romantic. Her recollections make for a consistently riveting story, while leaving the reader with a deep and profound understanding of the true tragedies and frustrating complexities of severe mental illness. --Jim DeRogatis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

One year after the Patty Hearst kidnapping fiasco, in 1975, Holman's mother, Molly, kidnapped her children (who were then ages eight and one) and brought them to live in the family's tiny cottage in Virginia. In her disturbing but luminous memoir of her mother's slow descent into schizophrenia, Holman writes, "My mother believed she had been inducted into a secret army. My mother, my baby sister, Emma, and I were foot soldiers entrusted with setting up a field hospital. We lived in that cottage for over three years." This twisted adventure begins with mother and daughter sanitizing the "hospital" with cut-up underwear soaked in ammonia and painting the cabin's windows black. When curious relatives drop by, Molly (lapsing into an unfamiliar British accent) warns her girls to keep mum: "You cannot talk about the secret war.... Your government has asked you to help. You will do what I say." The family's nightmare unfolds slowly, as Molly's mask of sanity becomes increasingly less convincing to friends and family. Holman's depiction of her young self "feeling trapped behind thick walls of glass" is hair-raisingly poignant. Of course she knows something isn't right with her mother, but years pass before the other adults in her life (including her father) provide a language for speaking about the unspeakable. Idealists should be forewarned: this unforgettable memoir doesn't have a rosy ending. However, Holman's gutsy prose bespeaks her survivor's backbone and hindsight.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743255496
• ISBN-13: 978-0743255493
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #961,469 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brave, moving, and much needed memoir, March 7, 2003

By	"fireman_named_bob" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad (Hardcover)

I found Virginia Holman's Rescuing Patty Hearst to be deeply moving. I too have a family member who suffers from mental illness and can relate to the isolation, the shame, and the struggle to find help from the community. Her depiction of a child raised by a schizophrenic mother is heartbreaking. Children often explore the boundary between fantasy and reality, and here, her mother's psychosis blurs those lines even further. Her mother's delusions become enmeshed into her everyday life. As the author grows into a young woman, she begins to sense the immensity of what is lost, and a different kind of struggle begins. How can her mother be helped when she denies needing it? How can her father, her sister and herself cope with the enormous loss and live fulfilling lives when their world is dominated by an illness that destroys the woman they love? Holman's brave memoir is a testament to the enduring human spirit and to the power of love. Through this book she offers a powerful gift to the world, giving valuable insight into the lives of families torn asunder by mental illness.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Extraordinary Portrayal of Mental Illness, March 22, 2003

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad (Hardcover)

In 1974, Virginia Holman was kidnapped. RESCUING PATTY HEARST is her ransom note.

The kidnapping was "custodial", which usually conjures up images of battery or abuse, or a divorce gone horribly wrong. The perpetrator here was not Holman's father or mother; instead, it was a disease. Holman's mother began experiencing delusions related to an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia. She came to believe that she was a soldier in a secret war and had to set up the family's vacation cottage on the Virginia coast as a field hospital to care for hordes of orphan children. But there were only two children in the small cottage --- Virginia and her baby sister --- and they were not being cared for.

Holman tells the story of her childhood experiences on two parallel tracks; each chapter has a date heading that explains whether a younger "Gingie" Holman, or her older, wiser contemporary counterpart is telling the story. We see what happens to Gingie, what she felt about it at the time, and how it affects her now. The author constantly evaluates and reevaluates her mother's actions and her own through the prism of time and experience, rotating back and forth in time to better understand what happened and why.

The book's subtitle is "Memories From A Decade Gone Mad"; its first line is "Nineteen seventy-four was a bad time to go crazy." Holman does not blame the excesses of the 1970's for her mother's illness, but makes the point that society was so topsy-turvy at that time that her mother's schizophrenia-induced actions seemed more normal than they otherwise might have. Holman's role model at that young age was Patricia Hearst, kidnapped heiress turned domestic terrorist. She is invoked as a symbol of the times, showing how stunning reversals in character and action can take place.

RESCUING PATTY HEARST is a beautifully realized portrait of a seventies childhood set against the backdrop of a devastating illness. Holman is blessed with both a powerful memory bank and astonishing skills at reviving the spirit of a lost civilization from the misty past. Some of this is unavoidably sentimental, but the areas of the book dealing with her mother's mental illness are starkly unsentimental. Holman's intimate knowledge of the disease is tinged with both sympathy and anger, leading to an honest, non-sensationalized portrayal of the reality of mental illness. Her memoir covers not only her mother's strange and powerful delusions, but also the day-to-day struggle that accompanies mental illness. Early on, Holman discusses an early delusion of her mother's that results in a stare of disgust from a harried salesman --- "a look," Holman writes, "that would become increasingly familiar in the years to come."

If Virginia Holman's mother had never experienced mental illness, there still would have been the makings of a memoir here; her portrayal of a childhood and a time is masterfully written and affecting. The presence of mental illness lends the book a wrenching quality, bringing home the reality of mental disability and the effects that it has on families and lives. Holman succeeds in describing her childhood; she triumphs in describing her mother, her illness and her plight. RESCUING PATTY HEARST is an extraordinary work, putting to shame more conventional or sentimental portrayals of mental illness.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning debut, March 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad (Hardcover)

In the early 70s, Virginia Holman's mother kidnapped her to a shack on the Chesapeake Bay, painted the windows black, and recruited her to be a soldier in her hallucinated war to save the children. At times tender, often heartwrenching, and with lyric language, Holman's memoir uncovers the painful, secret lives of people who survive schizophrenia in the family. It is an extrarodinary story, told with astonishing honesty and beauty, and finally a sense of hope strong as forged steel.

Do not miss reading this book. It is stunning.