The Partly Cloudy Patriot
by Sarah Vowell
Simon & Schuster

Sarah Vowell's second collection of essays is an examination of her own patriotic tendencies and their relation to her dubious assessment of American mythology. While she is at once a self-described "history buff" who at an adolescent age "pined to vote," she also spends a great portion of "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" waxing bored and unfulfilled on her adult encounters with Gettysburg and Salem, the 2000 Presidential Inauguration and the legacy of President Bill Clinton.

The book's essays unfortunately describe little more than a kind of undergraduate epiphany. As an adult, Vowell attentively watches contemporary history unfold as she also begins looking closer at the history that inspired her as a child. What she discovers is a discrepancy between popular record and fact. Disappointed that her youthful, idealistic notions about the magic of history don't pan out, Vowell grapples with simultaneously being a flag-waving patriot and a jaded skeptic.

This is not the stuff of soul searching, philosophically inward excavation and the like. It's more like a series of setups for Vowell's dry wit. "Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes," Vowell suggests, "goofing off is one of the central obligations of American citizenship." The brevity of most of these essays — the majority of which are less than 10 pages in length — tends to make superficial humor a more reasonable objective than substantial critique, which is to say that Vowell is more likely crack wise about George W. Bush's lack of linguistic prowess (which she does, if mining hackneyed territory, pretty well) than she is to discuss the implications of a substantial percentage of citizens of the most wealthy nation in the world actually seeking to be led by such a dimwit.

In Vowell's defense, the editorial requirements of many of the publications in which these essays first appeared (Time, Esquire, Salon.com) may have precluded the writer from expanding on some interesting topics. And in certain essays — particularly "Ike Was a Handsome Man," in which she compares the legacies (as canonized by presidential libraries) of past presidents to that of former President Clinton — the writer deals with topics in a thoughtful, complex and thorough manner. There is a healthy and rewarding touch of skeptical self-reflection in her telling of how she, by herself, in her living room, clapped in response to David Letterman notifying the United States on national television that he is neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but that he is "an American." But the majority of the essays just feel a little undercooked.

Over a quarter of these essays originally appeared in the NPR program" This American Life," to which Vowell is a regular contributor. In that forum, Vowell's nasal twang and dry oratory are half of the appeal of her work. It's a little unnerving to read these essays and realize that without the engaging context of her vocal delivery her writing is often reduced to a series of one-liners and underdeveloped possibilities.

— Cory O'Malley (comalley@hotmail.com)