It doesn’t happen often anymore that I pick up a book, in this case American Woman by Susan Choi, get to the end of a first paragraph, and actually feel excited about reading. That’s the effect Susan Choi’s writing has. She’s a witch of words, and this is one spell you’re going to enjoy.

Susan Choi loves words and she uses them masterfully. Within a few sentences, your world has become the world on the page. The characters breathe, the towns exist, and the situation…well, the situation has a very familiar ring -- at least if you’re old enough to recall that photo of Patty Hearst, newly dark-haired and sharp-jawed, newly ‘Tania’, holding…was it a sub-machine gun? And was it loaded?

American Woman is about a peculiar strata of American women. Those who, for whatever reason…coercion, dissatisfaction, passion, morality, principle…choose subversion as a lifestyle. And although the character based on Patty Hearst plays a prominent role, this novel focuses on Jenny, who takes on the job of a sort of underworld ombudsman, keeping what’s left of Choi’s stand-in for the real-time Symbionese Liberation Army, recent refugees of tragedy and disaster, from going entirely out of control, protecting them, ‘keeping’ them, though keeping her emotional distance as well. Jenny has her reasons for that. She’s on the run,  just as they are. And her life must stay unanchored, unexamined, and under tight control. Even those in a seeming fervor of preparedness and political passion can only tread water, going nowhere fast. It’s just another kind of illusion, the book seems to say, one that’s counter to the illusion of normalcy. And the lesson seems to be that you can only tread water for so long, until, inevitably, someone comes along and hauls you back to shore, whether you want to be saved or not.

American Woman could have been a tad more efficient, but that’s a minor complaint. Every time I put this book down, I looked forward to picking it up again, and after I was finished, it stayed with me. It stays with me still.