Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Sopherblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today my guest is Susan Choi. She's the author, most recently, of American woman, published by Harper Collins.

Her first novel, The Foreign Student, is also available in paperback as a Harper perennial.

You know, between the time that Patty Hurst robbed a bank and the time that she was finally arrested,

there was a period that people referred to as the missing summer.

Right, or the missing year.

The missing year. During which time moved from one safe house to another in the company of a woman named Wendy.

Yoshimura for at least part of that time.

Patty Hurst was not available to public site, but was in the company of several captors, including a woman who more or less acted as her safekeeper and her guide through the underground.

Well, so, I mean, we don't really know what their relationship was.

Wendy Yoshimura couldn't really be called a captor properly.

She crossed paths with these people well after the kidnapping, well after the shootout in L.A.,

well after the only three of the original SLA who remained alive were Patty Hurst, whether she was a

willing member or not, we'll never know. And Bill and Emily Harris, Wendy Yoshimora sort of

gets swept up in their situation after that on the East Coast.

They've made it to the East Coast somehow.

And presumably she travels across country with Patty Hurst arriving back in San Francisco where they are arrested and Wendy sort of disappears

...