The upside of being a hostage

Describing “Trance,” Christopher Sorrentino’s second novel, as historical fiction might be a misnomer. Though it is based on real events -- the Symbionese Liberation Army’s kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in 1974 -- this sprawling work is so ambitious and irreverent that it doesn’t fit easily into any genre.

“Trance” might be characterized as Don DeLillo, circa “Libra,” meets “Pulp Fiction”-era Quentin Tarantino. The author of “Sound on Sound” imbues this narrative with a surfeit of violence and shock, as well as plenty of weirdness and loopy humor. Along the way, through numerous points of view and abrupt stylistic shifts, Sorrentino critiques fame, infamy and radicalism in America -- all resonant cultural themes.

The novel’s Patty Hearst character -- here called Alice Galton but given the name “Tania” by her captors, as Hearst was -- is a blank, passive accomplice in the SLA’s radical, fervid cause. In the summer heat, they rob banks, steal cars and commit murders. Meanwhile, the heiress “smiles, broadly, as she’s been told,” clutching a rifle in the back of a van that smells like “warm ketchup”; there is “a ‘High Noon’ aspect to this that doesn’t escape her,” yet she is mostly a detached observer in her own life.

When she and SLA comrades Yolanda and Teko pull into a shopping center parking lot, as helicopters hover above in search of them, she sits back and takes in the suburban scene like a tourist on holiday. “Tania enjoys these oases,” Sorrentino writes, “the hand-painted signs in the supermarket windows, the faded placard outside the restaurant and cocktail lounge listing the specials.”

Her sudden transition to fugitive, it turns out, saves her from the trance-like existence she led before. Having been engaged to Eric Stump, her boyfriend since age 16, she seems to prefer being a kidnap victim, despite the inchoate loneliness of living on the run. Thinking of her former privileged life and Stump, she wonders how you “can admit you hate being with someone” after investing in a high-end home security system together. In retrospect she realizes that “she set up housekeeping with him like an imitation adult.” As Tania is increasingly influenced by the SLA, she too begins angrily shouting inane, pseudo-political phrases, such as “Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the People!” The SLA commits brutal crimes in the name of revolution, but Sorrentino presents these misguided guerrillas as hapless and absurd.

Scenes and chapters in this novel are presented almost cinematically, with “interludes,” and headlines indicating a shift in scene, the next caper or heist: “Dead Drop 3: Crenshaw Acres Shopping Centre, Inglewood,” and “Meanwhile ... “

Sorrentino, son of the great experimental writer Gilbert Sorrentino, refuses to hew to a single style, adjusting his prose as he sees fit. That means a change of font in one section, breaking off abruptly into correspondence form or reshaping almost deliriously lyrical sentences into staccato ones.

“Trance” is full of descriptions sublime in their precision. A Home Depot-like store “smells of old cardboard and potting soil and it has the empty silence of a place that has only just stopped making noise.”

Sorrentino has an inspired way of looking at people and places, one that suggests a wry sensibility and acute perceptivity. When Tania finds herself in a New York neighborhood close to Harlem, she realizes that her knowledge of the city “begins around Thirty-fourth Street and ends at Central Park South. So this bankrupt city is something of a revelation. The place is locked down, yet everyone seems to be outside, both in and out of the tumult. It’s like going to a sporting event where you root for yourself.” And her attractive SLA cohort Joan is described as having a look that “successfully combines artsy-fartsy la-di-da with poised confidence and a genuine delicacy.”

Does all this add up to a great novel? Yes and no. “Trance” is a pleasure to read -- delightful and often funny -- yet by the end, the author seems to have exhausted his bag of tricks and is unable to make a grand or cohesive exit. It is more an entertainment than a profound literary experience, but that’s not necessarily bad. Sorrentino renders this bizarre event in American history both real and surreal. Unlike Susan Choi’s 2003 novel “American Woman,” which covered the same territory, “Trance” doesn’t aim for psychological insight. Sorrentino might not be as meaningful as one might like, but he makes up for it with droll observations, brisk plotting and exceedingly original prose. *