The voices of guns: The definitive and dramatic story of the twenty-two-month career of the Symbionese Liberation Army, one of the most bizarre chapters in the history of the American Left (Hardcover)

by Vin McLellan (Author), Paul Avery (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Putnam; Probable First edition (1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399117385
• ISBN-13: 978-0399117381
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,356,084 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Voices of Guns account of the Symbionese Liberation army, October 23, 2000

By	Greg Lang (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This is one of the two key accounts of the Symbionese Liberation Army. The other is the Patricia Hearst autobiography "Every Secret Thing" (rereleased as "Patty Hearst"). Voices of Guns is an excellent book on the SLA considering that it was released in 1977 before all of the information on the case became public. The most notable error: VOG correctly stated that after the Hearst guilty verdict the DA's said that Hearst began cooperating with police AFTER being given a 35 year preliminary sentence. In actuality Hearst had beeen secretly cooperating with two FBI agents soon after her capture. The original judge knew this but the prosecutors didn't. Other than that the authors seemed like they didn't want to burn bridges with their sources so there is a bit of transparent pandering but this is easy to notice and work around. Overall, an excellent book on the SLA that is very balanced.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!, June 27, 2005

By	David Fentress - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'll get the flaws out of the way first. First, the author alternates frequently between the SLA members' actual names and their code names. That was a little confusing. Probably it was his intention to make the reader familiar with both.

Secondly, the book was very thorough on details. But maybe it was a little too thorough, particularly on the biographical detail of the key SLA players. Also, in the period following the siege of the LA house that resulted in the deaths of most of the original SLA, there was an infusion of new members and a complex web of shifting loyalties. In these aspects, I think the authors should have saved some of that minutia for appendices. If you're using this as a research project source, the more detail the better. But for the casual reader, it's a lot of detail to wade through. You can do some selective skimming and the whole of the book remains coherent.

But those are minor flaws, and even as flaws they're erring on the side of completeness. This book reads very well; I couldn't put it down. The book opened with background about the politicization of prisoners in California due to outside volunteer groups, in the hopes of rehabilitation. Very perceptive of the authors to recognize the role this phenomenon played.

The authors presented an enlightening analysis of just what the SLA's ideology was; what motivated these people to do what they did. At the point in the story where Patty Hearst joined the SLA and transformed to Tania, the authors presented some helpful background about "brainwashing" (to the extent that such a phenomenon as the public conceives it even exists).

In short, not only is the research of the facts excellent, but the analysis is superb. It's objective. It's not overly stylized nor overly speculative. (None of which can be said for the sickly account, "Exclusive! The inside story of Patricia Hearst and the SLA" by Marilyn Baker. ) The book's power to engross relies on its substance.