"The Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell, (Riverhead Books, 254 pages, $26).
DAYTON, Ohio — Sarah Vowell is a frequent contributor to the public radio program "This American Life." That squeaky voice and sarcastic humor have made her a mainstay on the air.
Vowell parlayed that recognition into a rising career as an writer. Her 2006 book "Assassination Vacation" allowed her to indulge a morbid fascination with American history. She mined historical archives, uncovering bizarre links between the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley.
In her latest effort, "The Wordy Shipmates," Vowell takes readers back to the 1630s and the Massachusetts Bay Colony that was founded by English Puritans. Vowell was inspired to write the book by three significant events: the attacks on 9/11, our invasion of Iraq and the funeral of President Reagan.
She noticed that Reagan used a term in speeches, which originated in a sermon by John Winthrop, the governor of the Bay Colony. Winthrop spoke of the "city upon a hill." Reagan embellished this term, calling it "that shining city on a hill."
Intrigued, Vowell studied the writings of Winthrop and other notable Puritans from that community. "The Wordy Shipmates" of the title are Winthrop; John Cotton, a Boston minister; Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island Colony, and Anne Hutchinson, a midwife devoted to Cotton's preaching. Vowell dredged up their dusty scribblings from the 17th century gloom.
I expected to be amused. While there were frequent glimmers of Vowell's trademark sarcasm, this grim history is far from amusing. Vowell is not a historian, but she is the ultimate history geek, and so readers learn about this period. Now and then, we get a glimpse of Vowell's personal history.
The motto of the Bay Colony was "Come Over and Help Us." This somehow implied that American Indians asked Europeans to come to America to help them. We know how that turned out. Vowell attempts to link that slogan with the mindset that seems to guide our philosophy even now. She asserts that after the United States became a global power, our government used it to justify incursions around the world. In reference to Iraq, she writes: "of the American invasion (Vice President) Cheney claimed, 'My belief is that we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.' After all, we're there to help."
Her argument seems somewhat flimsy, though.
Vowell grew up Pentecostal in Oklahoma. That Puritan faith opened floodgates of her memory. "I was exposed, from infancy on, to so much wretch-like-me, original-sin talk that I spent my entire childhood believing I was as depraved as Charles Manson when in reality I might have been the best-behaved 9-year-old in the 20th century."
That past inspires her best lines: "Once, when I told a member of the fabled East Coast Media Elite that I was raised Pentecostal, he asked if that meant I grew up 'fondling snakes in a trailer.' I replied, 'You know that book club you're in? Well, my church was a lot like that, except we actually read the book.'
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Book reviewer Vick Mickunas blogs daily about books at www.DaytonDailyNews.com/booknook. Contact him at vick AT vickmickunas.com