cart
Brian Joseph Davis at his madcap best
I, Tania is a scattershot fictional history of kidnapping victim and heiress Patty Hearst, told in memoir form—and the writing is Brian Joseph Davis at his madcap best.
After being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Hearst adopted the pseudonym Tania. Davis sees this historical fact as evidence of a second personality, and sets about to write Hearst’s memoirs from Tania’s perspective, chronicling her time with the SLA—here presented as a bunch of sex-starved imbeciles—as well as other off-kilter happenings that include the murder of Martin Amis and a present-day showdown with Katie Couric.
The book is being marketed as a novel, but that’s a bit of a stretch. Rather, it’s a melange of prose, poetry, song, interviews, travel guide and criticism. Davis is an inventive writer, and his irreverent wit and absurdist tendencies permeate I, Tania— which seeps enough pop culture references to keep you running to Wikipedia just to keep up.
The book sometimes loses coherence and some jokes don’t hit the mark as well as others, but for those looking for something wildly original, I, Tania is worth kidnapping.
 |
