The French ambassador becomes a father figure to a hotheaded young rebel who is evidence of why hormones and firearms should not mix the vice president, with a newfound talent for housekeeping, promises a shy recruit, whose gun is almost as tall as he is, a job once the ordeal is over and the Red Cross negotiator develops a kind of begrudging affection for Benjamin. These form, as they do in the novel, like cobwebs, gradually and inevitably, during the long and often boring days trapped in the house. (Who among us … ?) The guerrillas, empty-handed and cut off from escape once the police and military arrive, make the best of their unintended hostages, but while there is plenty of talk of freeing “the people,” Weitz is not interested in politics, just relationships. The freedom fighters are there to take the president of the country hostage, but alas, he skipped the party, preferring to stay home and watch his soap opera.

There is a fundamental curiosity to the story: How can two such different groups of people, captives and captors, coexist in a small space for months at a time? The details of the fictional crisis deviate somewhat from its real-life counterpart-the setting is never specified beyond an unnamed country in Latin America, and the takeover happens during a party at a vice president’s house rather than an ambassador’s-but there is a fundamental curiosity that underlies both: How can two such different groups of people, captives and captors, coexist in a small space for months at a time? So cinematic was the incident that it later became the inspiration for Ann Patchett’s greatest novel, Bel Canto, which has now, in turn, inspired a film adaptation directed and co-written by Paul Weitz, best known for his work on About a Boy and Mozart in the Jungle. The Japanese embassy hostage crisis, as it came to be called, lasted four months before it ended with a government raid that left all of the militants dead (and one of the hostages, too). In 1996, members of the radical Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement stormed into the Japanese ambassador’s home in Lima, Peru, and took the guests, attending a party in celebration of Emperor Akihito’s birthday, as their prisoners.

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