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.

"Christopher Sorrentino's vision here is kaleidoscopic, eliding fluidly from individual to individual, taking on a wide array of points of view."--David L. Ulin, Newsday

"This sprawling work is so ambitious and irreverent that it doesn't fit easily into any genre. . . . Full of descriptions sublime in their precision . . . Trance is a pleasure to read--delightful and often funny."--Los Angeles Times

"Sorrentino has something of Don DeLillo's ear for American white noise--for the hiss and crackle that fills the country's derelict spaces."--The New York Times Book Review

"[Sorrentino] remains a virtuoso, and much of the success of this book is due to his writing skill. . . . [He] is an insightful, sensitive writer."--Harvey Pekar, The Baltimore Sun