Vowell vows to retell history

Sarah Vowell has some unconventional thoughts about the Puritans – not the Pilgrims who sailed from England on the Mayflower and ended up in Plymouth, but the ones who settled Massachusetts a decade later.

“My Puritans,” as Vowell calls them, were not the “generic, boring, stupid, judgmental killjoys” history makes them out to be.

“Because to me, they are very specific, fascinating, sometimes brilliant, judgmental killjoys who rarely agreed on anything except that Catholics are going to hell,” Vowell writes in her new book, “The Wordy Shipmates,” which was released earlier this month.

Vowell, an author, humorist and commentator, has carved out a career telling stories from American history with a mix of humor, sarcasm and painstaking research.

She doesn’t consider herself a historian, but has recently become more comfortable thinking of herself as a writer who can teach history in her own way.

“I’m offended that people think history is boring,” she said.

“I find the same part of me that loves movies and TV shows and novels is the same part of me that is obsessed with history because it has all the drama, it has all the characters and strange dialogue … and all the killers that the films of Martin Scorcese have.”

Vowell, 38, started out on public radio’s “This American Life,” where since 1996 she has been a regular contributor.

She turned her interest in radio into her first book, “Radio On: A Listener’s Diary,” published in 1997. Since then, she has written four books, including “The Partly Cloudy Patriot” and “Assassination Vacation.”

She was also the voice of Violet Parr, the gloomy teenage superhero in the 2004 animated film, “The Incredibles.”

Readers know her for her one-liners and her frequent references to pop culture and politics.

Consider Vowell’s portrayal of the Puritans – led by John Winthrop – as well-educated, literary people.

“Winthrop and his shipmates and their children and their children’s children just wrote their own books and pretty much kept their noses in them up until the day God created the Red Sox,” she wrote.

Listeners know her for her distinctive voice, which has a nasal, childlike quality.

“We still get complaints about her voice – ‘Why is she on the radio?’ There are still some people who are resistant that somebody would sound so nontraditional on the air,” said Ira Glass, host/producer of “This American Life.”

Vowell grew up in Oklahoma and Montana in a religious, Pentecostal household of mixed politics. She and her twin sister, Amy, would put up posters for Democratic candidates in the upstairs, while her parents put up posters for Republican candidates on the lower level.

“My dad would drive my sister and me to our teen anti-nuclear meetings in the family pickup that was emblazoned with NRA labels,” she said. “I sort of take great comfort in that aspect of my upbringing. My parents didn’t want us to be clones of them.”

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