On her way up to the stage, on the very first stop of her tour for her new book THE WORDY SHIPMATES, Sarah Vowell was flanked by no less than nine people. (Among them was, I believe, Riverhead publisher Geoff Kloske; I didn't recognize the others.) This wasn't as humorous as it was puzzling; the crowd at the Union Square B&N here in New York didn't seem like the acting-up type, and clearly they were already big fans of Vowell, the "This American Life" contributor and professional history buff with the voice of a Pixar superheroine. As the bookstore liaison described her as "one of the coolest, funniest smart chicks around," I saw a segment of a smile -- perhaps a quarter -- creep up her cheek.
So maybe Sarah Vowell doesn't crack herself up as much as she does the rest of us. In a sense, that makes her work a public service: Not only did I learn more about Garfield from her last book ASSASSINATION VACATION than I ever did in history class, I got a good chuckle out of it! THE WORDY SHIPMATES tackles the subject of the Puritans, who are not known for their giggle-inducing exploits, and Vowell read an excerpt about John Winthrop's sermon which coined the term "City on a Hill." (This phrase was mistakenly attributed to Ronald Reagan during the recent vice-presidential debate.) She describes Winthrop's text ("A Model of Christian Charity") as describing "an America that might have been" as well as "a teetering stack of self-congratulatory Biblical comparisons" -- only to cleverly undercut the trenchant analysis with, "Of course, this America does exist. It's called Canada."
It's pretty clear why Vowell chose the Puritans as the subject of this book, which is "more head trip than road trip," and just as clear that Vowell is tired of explaining those reasons. (Need a hint? Watch her recent appearance on "The Daily Show." Need it all explained to you? Check her interview with DCist.) She'd rather "go all grandpa" on the Bible book 2nd Samuel ("King David's serial-killer years"), Winthrop's own personal journal entries about the relationship between the colony and its disapproving mother country, or the amazing cast she's lined up for the audio version of SHIPMATES -- for which she promised John Slattery, Catherine Keener, Campbell Scott and John Oliver, among others. But I have no doubt that THE WORDY SHIPMATES will make me laugh -- and if writing it didn't make her at least smile, hopefully her next book, a history of Hawaii, will.
CONSONANT WITH VOWELL*
- Another person from my reading notes: Don't ask about Showtime or "The Incredibles 2"!
- I can't wait to read her contribution to the STATE BY STATE anthology, which I just bought. (She represents longtime home state of Montana.)
- Is Sarah Vowell coming to your city soon? She's in Brookline and Cambridge, Mass., tonight and tomorrow and heads to the West Coast next week (Wednesday night in LA, Hank!) before looping back through the Midwest and the South (Oct. 28 in Austin). Check out the full lineup at BookTour.com
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