The Partly Cloud Patriot

The Partly Cloud Patriot
by
Sarah Vowell
read by
Sarah Vowell

As with all of Sarah Vowell's books, this history book is more memoir than history lesson. With the help of some of her friends doing voices of famous historical figures (Conan O'Brien as Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Colbert as Al Gore, Norman Lear as her friend Kevin, etc), Vowell visits existing presidential libraries to try and figure out what Clinton should do about his library - this book was published right after Bush took office).
Vowell goes on to recount Gore visiting a school before the Presidential election in '00 and starting out in San Francisco selling antique maps. Both are important in showing how she became the person she is, revelling in her nerdiness.
I do have one point of contention with Miss Vowell. She claims to be 5'4" tall, but I ran into her, almost literally, at Wordstock in Portland a couple of years ago and what struck me, other than "Oh my god! I almost crushed Sarah Vowell!", was how short she was. I am 6'2" and have and have had lots of friends who are right around 5' tall, I feel like I can safely say that Vowell is much shorter than her claimed height.
There are wonderful musical interludes throughout the story. Most are purely instrumental, while some have vocals. All are by the band They Might Be Giants. The "It Could Be Worse" song written by They Might Be Giants is brilliant. It's based on a part of the book, where Vowell explains how she makes herself feel better in times of woe.
The partly cloudy partriot that the book is named after, Vowell reveals to be herself. She explains essentially that she's a patriot, and not a Patriot. The former love their country, even when things aren't how they like it, maybe even especially when things aren't how they like it. But the latter case - Patriots with a capital P - are the kind of demagogues that make her embarassed to be an American; the kind of people who say things like, "Love it or leave it!" and proclaim that anyone who doesn't think exactly like them is not a patriot. Vowell totally rocks this. She is talking about Liberals and Conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, specifically the election and Supreme Court case that but George W. Bush in the Whitehouse, but her argument extends the other way, to the people on the left, and she is clear that she means them too.
I always love hearing a book read by the author. It is so much more real, somehow. Vowell doesn't have a beautiful voice, but she does have a sincere one. I've heard her enough times - on This American Life, in The Incredibles and three other audiobooks, that I couldn't imagine listening to one of her works without her reading it to me.