The Partly Cloudy Patriot
by Sarah Vowell

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Book Summary Information

• ISBN13: 9780743243803
• Condition: New
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• The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Book Reviews of The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Book Review: Partly Sunny
Summary: 4 Stars

I confess, even though I hear a lot os in the former Confederacy, and walked hurriedly through the Book Depository museum at Dealey Plaza so I could get back to a hotel room in Arlington and watch the "American Idol" finale. I think Vowell would approve of my choice (Ruben over Clay, that is).

The most timely topic in the collection is also one of the shortest articles: "Rosa Parks, C'est Moi". There's a universal truth here. In American politics, once someone compares themselves to Thomas Jefferson, they've already lost the debate. When a triumphant athlete quotes Lou Gehrig's "luckiest man on the face of the Earth", you know he has well and truly lost the plot. And when some cf NPR while driving cross-country for work, I've still never heard Vowell on the air. I did see her on one of the first post-9/11 editions of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", but mostly I'm here as a fan of her written work, especialy her last collection, "Take the Cannoli". Like "Cannoli", "Patriot" is a grab-bag of short features that mix Vowell's family life with her thoughts on American cultural heritage.

There's really not a bad article in the bunch, though I feel (as I did with the last book) that many of them end too abruptly, as if she were warming up to her theme and then suddenly moved on to the next topic. She talks about the history of mapmaking, and then switches gears to eulogize that great evangelist, Tom Landry. She never lingers on the subject long enough to beat it into the ground, and intentionally leaves a lot unsaid.

The book's centerpiece is "The Nerd Voice", a proud article about the place of the nerd in American society, told in two parts -- first from the inauguration of George W. Bush, and then in an interview with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" writer Doug Petrie. A later chapter in the same vein cover's Vowell's fascination with America's most famous bookworm warrior, Teddy Roosevelt, who famously read "Anna Karenina" while on a cattle drive. That fascinates me too. I carried a "Doctor Who" novel through the battlefield at Shiloh. No Teddy Roosevelt, I.

Along the way, Vowell schleps to Gettysburg, the Salem witch museums, an underground cafeteria at Carlsbad Caverns, and a local arcade where she plays penny basketball. I really admire this lifestyle. In the past year I have traipsed through two Civil War battlefieldheap dime-store iconoclast professes to be the next Rosa Parks, it's time to ask for the check. Sarah Vowell probably could have gotten a whole book just out of this alone.. but settled for less than five pages.

Ideally, the next Sarah Vowell collection will feature a return to the Richard Nixon presidential libraries... in the midst of a mini-review of "The Big Lebowski".

Summary of The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration.

The result is a teeming and engrossing book, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.

United States Books

• Subjects > History > Americas > United States
• Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory
• United States > History & Criticism
• Social Sciences