partlycloudypatriot

Sarah Vowell, a frequent contributor to NPR’s This American Life, and author of Take the Cannoli, has written another collection of humorous essays. In The Partly Cloudy Patriot, she focuses mainly on politics and history in the United States, but the essays address numerous contemporary issues, as well, from the creation of President Clinton’s presidential library to Al Gore’s personality.

Vowell is a professed lover of history—even a nerdy one, she admits, and she proves it in her essays about visiting various historical sites on vacations instead of taking trips to the tropics. Vowell explains, “The historical periods I like to learn about aren’t so much the costume dramas as the slasher flicks.” She goes on to describe her fascination with the Civil War, Puritan New England (and the Salem Witch Trials in particular), and the French Revolution. “Another reason I’m intrigued with hanged of Salem, especially the women, is that a number of them aroused suspicion in the first place because they were financially independent, or sharp-tongued, or kept to themselves. In other words, they were killed off for living the same sort of life I live right now but with longer skirts and fewer cable channels,” Vowell writes.

All of her experiences do not revolve around history, however. She also accompanies a group of friends to the Bush presidential inauguration, if only to mourn, and is saddened to see the new President—the one she didn’t vote for—the ex-president, the defeated candidate, and (interestingly) former candidate Bob Dole. “I’ve developed a soft spot for Dole,” she writes, “because he symbolizes a simpler, more innocent time in America when you could lose the presidential election and, like, not actually become the President.” She also visits the Carlsbad Caverns for a lengthy examination of the decades-old underground cafeteria that is the source of controversy; naturalists (including the National Parks Service) want the antiquated, un-natural cafeteria removed, but locals, for whom the cafeteria is an enormous part of their nostalgia and community identity, would like to see it remain where it is. Although Vowell supports the conservationists, she is able to see both points of view. After all, she notes, one of the first astronauts took a golf ball to the moon and hit it into space. “That’s what we Americans do,” she writes, “When we find a place that’s really special. We go there and act exactly like ourselves. And we are a bunch of fun-loving dopes.”

Throughout her humorous essays, Vowell’s ever-present dilemma is to reconcile her love of America with some of the country’s less-impressive and, in many cases, downright embarrassing activities and characteristics. Her qualms stem, in part, from her own family history: she is a liberal, New York City writer, whereas her father, a gunsmith, and her mother, a pious Christian, live in rural Montana. Some of her essays address this dichotomy: to love one’s family and one’s country, despite how very different they are from oneself.

What I like most about Sarah Vowell is that she sets such a good example as a writer; she can make a point without getting overly cranky about it; she has a talent for making her opinion clear while being hysterically funny and allowing for differing opinions. Her work will definitely appeal to fans of David Sedaris, although she is a notably different writer, more likely (in this collection, anyway) to examine the culture at large than her own life and family, as Sedaris is inclined to do, much more likely to have a pointed observation to make.