2005 National Book Award Finalist for FictionA Los Angeles Times Book Review Favorite Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Novel of the Year It is 1974 and a tiny band of self-styled urban guerrillas, calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), abducts a newspaper heiress, who then takes the guerrilla name"Tania" and shocks the world by choosing to remain with her former captors. Soon most of the SLA are dead, killed in a suicidal confrontation with police in Los Angeles, forcing Tania and her two remaining comrades—the pompous and abusive General Teko and his duplicitous lieutenant, Yolanda—into hiding, where they will remain for the next sixteen months. These are the months of Tania's sentimental education.