Sarah Vowell on her book Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

Photo credit: Owen Brooker

Tuesday, April 8 at 7 p.m. ET

Online via Zoom
Free & open to all

The recording for this lecture will only be available for 7 days.

Marking the 200th anniversary of the Marquise de Lafayette’s visit to the Berkshires, New York Times-bestselling author Sarah Vowell joins us for a conversation on April 8. Vowell’s book, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, explores the patriot founders' alliance with France as personified by the teenage volunteer in George Washington's army, the Marquis de Lafayette. This talk is co-sponsored by OLLI, the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area, and the Berkshire County Historical Society. This talk is part of the Berkshires250 and Lafayette200 programming for OLLI and Berkshire County. Learn more about other Rev250 programs here.

Sarah Vowell is the New York Times bestselling author of seven nonfiction books on American history and culture.  By examining the connections between the American past and present, she offers personal, often humorous accounts of American history as well as current events and politics.  Her book, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, explores both the ideas and the battles of the American Revolution, especially the patriot founders' alliance with France as personified by the teenage volunteer in George Washington's army, the Marquis de Lafayette.

Vowell’s previous book, Unfamiliar Fishes is the intriguing history of our 50^th state, Hawaii, annexed in 1898.  Replete with a cast of beguiling and often tragic characters, including an overthrown Hawaiian queen, whalers, missionaries, sugar barons, Teddy Roosevelt and assorted con men, Unfamiliar Fishes is another history lesson in Americana as only Vowell can tell it – with brainy wit and droll humor.

The Wordy Shipmates examines the New England Puritans and their journey to and impact on America. She studies John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” and the bloody story that resulted from American exceptionalism. And she also traces the relationship of Winthrop, Massachusetts’ first governor, and Roger Williams, the Calvinist minister who founded Rhode Island – an unlikely friendship that was emblematic of the polar extremes of the American foundation. Throughout she reveals how American history can show up in the most unexpected places in our modern culture, often in poignant ways.

Her book Assassination Vacation is a haunting and surprisingly hilarious road trip to tourist sites devoted to the murders of presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Vowell examines what these acts of political violence reveal about our national character and our contemporary society.

She is also the author of two essay collections, The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Take the Cannoli.  Her first book, Radio On, is her year-long diary of listening to the radio in 1995. She was guest editor for The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017.  

Vowell’s thirty years as a journalist and columnist began in the freewheeling atmosphere of the weekly newspapers of the 1990s, including The Village Voice, the Twin Cities’ City Pages and San Francisco Weekly, where she was the pop music columnist.  An original contributor to McSweeney’s, she has worked as a columnist for Salon and Time, a reviewer for Spin, a reporter for GQ, and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, where she covered politics, history, education and life in Montana.  She was a contributing editor for the public radio show This American Life from 1996-2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries and toured the country in many of the program’s live shows. 

Her notable side projects have included a decade as the founding president of 826NYC, a nonprofit tutoring and writing center for students aged 6-18 in Brooklyn; producing a filmed oral history series commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Montana Constitutional Convention of 1972; and occasional voice acting, including her role as teen superhero Violet Parr in Brad Bird’s Academy Award-winning The Incredibles, and its sequel, Incredibles 2, from Pixar Animation Studios.

This event will be recorded and available to registrants for seven days after the event.

Thank you to Housatonic Heritage and the Berkshire County Historical Society for your support for and co-sponsorship of this program.