Low Budget Superhero

Dear Sarah Vowell,

Girlfriend, I love your work. I really do. You won me over years ago, probably beginning with your 1998 Trail of Tears story on "This American Life" telling about how you and your sister retraced the Cherokee path to Oklahoma. Your distinctive voice and dry, sharp humor highlights my NPR listening. I've oft wished we could just hang out and dish. Maybe invite Janeane Garofalo, start an Alt-Whatever club, invent a new low-calorie cocktail over impassioned discussions of modern Feminist ideas, Crocs and Marcia Brady while trading playlists of indie bands. I feel like we can hang, dude. So of course I really wanted to love your most recent book, The Wordy Shipmates.

Follow up:

Here's the thing, Sarah. You're smart. And with this book you prove that you're way smarter than me. It's OK, I can admit it. I love to read, but I also like stupid TV shows. I listen to NPR, but I also listen to Howard Stern. I eat veggie burgers, but I also douse my plump-when-you-cook-em hot dogs in ketchup, mustard and relish. If I had your brains I'd be telling stories to millions on NPR too, instead of writing in my blog for my ten readers. I might have used too much of my brain to store old Brady Bunch episodes, because the neurons that should have been firing from the thrill of minutiae of the Massachusetts Bay Colony just, well, didn't. They just lay there flatlining, wondering when the good part would start. I'm calling that the reason I was bored silly by your obsession with the Puritans. Notice how I say "I was bored" and not "the book was boring." Because who am I to say? You've earned the right to tell any story you like. Clearly you've managed to parlay a gift for storytelling into a sparkling career, something I covet every time I drag my lazy ass to my ordinary day job.

Before I cracked the book I was kinda grooving on the idea of reading about the Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony (not the Pilgrims, but the Puritans, yes, we get it, it's one of the points you make repeatedly).

So what was the problem? Why did I glaze over the words, plodding through as though this were a gnarly extra-credit homework assignment for my least favorite class?

I guess I just don't think the Puritans are as misunderstood as you seem to think they are, and again, you're so much smarter that maybe I just don't see it. I only just figured out the other day that The Breakfast Club is an existential movie.

I also think the text wasn't easy to get through because of the non-chronological, scattershot style. It started with John Winthrop's speech to the departing settlers, then veered to talking about Fonzie, then Thanksgiving, then John Cotton. I know you didn't intend it to be a chapter-by-chapter history book, but a little more chronological cohesion would have helped the likes of me. I mean,I gave up on Heroes after season 2 because there were just too many characters and storylines to keep track of, and once they started jumping around in time, forget it.

My other problem was the overall tone. Call me crazy, but it was a bit much with the constant self-observance of how "nerdy" you find your own obsession. It came off a little uppity. You sound like you think you're the only member of our generation who's ever heard the Puritan's story, and that you've made yourself the messenger who'll bring history to the rest of us. Kinda like when Elvis brought rump-shaking rock to the white people and everyone went "Ooooooh" even though he learned everything from the black musicians in Memphis who'd been playing that stuff for years.

I knew who John Winthrop was before I read The Wordy Shipmates. Granted, I do live in Massachusetts. Maybe in Oklahoma the finer details of our nation's history is a more exotic topic. Here, when you go for ice cream at Bedford Farms you have to drive past the Bullet Hole House and the North Bridge. That's the site of the historic shot heard 'round the world, if you didn't know. Tons of American history here. We're just lousy with it.

So, yeah, I didn't like The Wordy Shipmates.

I still think you're the shit. I plan to leave work hours early for your book signing in October. I tried to get to the last one, but left work too late and the room was at capacity! I couldn't get in! But that's the night I bought the book. Well, my boyfriend squeezed into the throng and bought it for me. See what I mean, if I were so smart I'd have a throng. I ain't gots no throng.

October is a great time to come to Boston. While you're here, you should go visit the Bullet Hole House, the Alcott place and, my favorite, Authors Ridge! I'd go with you but I have to work.

Yours,

Michelle DiPoala
August 2, 2009