Culture
Sarah Vowell talks to WOUB about ‘homework as a way of life,’ They Might Be Giants, and her early work as a music journalist
By: Emily Votaw
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MARIETTA, Ohio (WOUB) – Throughout the late ‘90s and early ‘00s Sarah Vowell came to prominence as a contributing editor for This American Life. Her intelligent (and often quietly humorous) approach to in-depth historical reporting soon became emblematic of public media itself.
Vowell has written seven nonfiction books tackling a wide range of topics – from Presidential assassinations to the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii to (most recently) American and French revolutionary Marquis de Lafayette. She’s known for her meticulous research, which she often accumulates in-person at sites of relevance to her topic.
Sarah Vowell appears at the Peoples Bank Theatre (222 Putnam Street) Wednesday, Oct. 11 as a part of Marietta College’s Esbenshade Series. In advance of that appearance, Vowell took the time to speak with WOUB’s Emily Votaw about brainy indie rockers They Might Be Giants; Vowell’s early years as a music journalist; and her dedication to “homework as a way of life.”
Find an edited and condensed transcript of that conversation below. Esbenshade Series events are free with seat reservations. Find information on reserving seats at this link.
They Might Be Giants have provided a lot of the music for your audiobooks, and you appear prominently in the 2003 documentary about them, Gigantic: the Tale of Two Johns. I’m curious: how did you first discover the band?
Sarah Vowell:
Well, the town I grew up in, Bozeman, MT, had – and still has – a very good college radio station. So I heard them on my local radio station, KGLT, back in the ‘80s, I would guess.
Emily Votaw:
Why do you think they resonated with you?
Sarah Vowell:
There’s a kind of definite shared sensibility. They’re very verbal and their sense of humor and history is similar; they’re also not much older than I am. Also, I guess culturally, I came up in the ‘80s in a sort of low-key bohemian space – I wouldn’t call it “underground” – but it was in a kind of opposition to mainstream culture in the ‘80s. I also grew up in a college town which was very – I don’t know – obsessed with the arts and music and literature and things like that. And so I guess there was maybe a shared sense of culture.
Emily Votaw:
Your books combine historical research and personal anecdotes. How do you strike a balance between the two?
Sarah Vowell:
A lot of what I do is reporting, really. It’s historical reporting, whether that’s going to historical sites or doing archival research. Now that I’ve been doing it for a couple of decades, I find that what I am really interested in is a sense of place, and putting whatever I am writing about in the context of its location.
So when I wrote about presidential assassinations [2005’s Assassination Vacation], I did that by going to the historic sites that had to do with those presidents and their assassinations. Or, when I first started writing about history, I made a radio documentary where I drove the Trail of Tears with my sister – and that was very much also a travel story where I was reporting at each location along the way and thinking about the past in the context of the present. I’m also thinking about and reflecting on what’s remembered and what isn’t.
When I was writing about the assassination of President Garfield there wasn’t a plaque in the place where President Garfield was shot. And why was it that way with that particular presidential murder? Why is the Lincoln assassination so much more vivid? Part of it was Lincoln was a more important president and a more fascinating person; and his death had such an obvious effect on history. I also went to Lincoln’s house in Springfield, IL, and one of the things on display there, under a glass case, was a drain pipe from Lincoln’s house. That just says it all about how beloved and revered Lincoln is – that they would put this drain pipe on display like it’s a sculpture or something.
“I also went to Lincoln’s house in Springfield, IL, and one of the things on display there, under a glass case, was a drain pipe from Lincoln’s house. That just says it all about how beloved and revered Lincoln is – that they would put this drain pipe on display like it’s a sculpture or something.” – Sarah Vowell
So, those are the kind of revelations you get when you get to a place; just in getting a feel for it as a location. Also, locals can be so educational. I wrote one book about 19th century Hawaii [2011’s Unfamiliar Fishes] and I found the people in Hawaii, especially the native Hawaiians, to be so educational – because a lot of native Hawaiians are still upset about the overthrow of the Queen of Hawaii in 1893; and they reject the notion that they’re a part of the United States. People who hold a grudge have a lot to say about their history. When I was writing about the history of Hawaii, there was this really tragic figure, Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena. One of the things I got to go see when I was working on the book was at The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu – it was Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena’s long, feathered cloak – made of hundreds – if not thousands – of bird feathers. Seeing that artifact, she felt very present.
There’s something about going somewhere in person – and it’s not just about the place – for me it is usually also about communing with some artifact having to do with a person. Sometimes you can learn so much from just looking at an object and, well – I mean, I’m talking to someone in Ohio so I guess I keep mentioning President Garfield – but if you go to his farm in Mentor, they have his death mask on display. It’s very gaunt and skeletal – it took him several weeks to die after he was shot. And President Garfield was a very robust, sort of rotund figure – and to see his skeletal death mask – you just learn the story of his last few weeks of life, and what his family had to witness watching him waste away.
I mean, I still love primary materials – and going back to the written material – but there’s something in seeing these things that’s very powerful. We all have these things in our houses that mean something to us – our own talismans. In a way, going to these places and seeing these objects or reading old letters – it’s kind of a way of bringing the dead back to life.
“We all have these things in our houses that mean something to us – our own talismans. In a way, going to these places and seeing these objects or reading old letters – it’s kind of a way of bringing the dead back to life.” – Sarah Vowell
Emily Votaw:
I’ve always wondered what your process is, when you get to one of those locations. Do you just start taking notes? Or do you just sort of let it all wash over you and then write up notes afterwards?
Sarah Vowell:
I’m a real furious note taker, and I take photos and do a lot of preparation. I’m all about homework as a kind of a way of life. Over time you get a feel for what resonates. Early on, when I first started writing and I would go on a reporting trip, I would find that whatever story or article I was writing, whatever I told my sister on the phone from my hotel room, those things always made it in. So usually I try to choose the moments or the insights or the quotations that have some sort of resonance. I’m not a completist, I don’t write 800 page books on a subject. I usually try to – I guess – hit the highlights. And I don’t know where that comes from. It might come from growing up doing radio and having that sense of a kind of fear of dead air that you get when you’re a broadcaster.
But, generally I don’t make any decisions about the final content while I’m reporting. I just write down everything I can and take a photo of every single thing and get all the materials I can. I’m pretty ruthless about editing out things that are, I hope, dull or irrelevant. Sometimes it’s pretty painful. Sometimes I waste a lot of time doing that. I wrote one book about the New England Puritans [2008’s The Wordy Shipmates], and that was a really hard book to research.
I think most present-day people write off the Puritans as ridiculous idiots, but they were quite a learned, bookish people, and their approach to their religion was quite scholarly and bookish. They were also very argumentative, and sometimes I would spend days and days trying to figure out what they’re arguing about – usually some theological point – and, then, when I would finally understand it, I would realize ‘oh, this isn’t interesting.’ I would have to throw that away.
“[The New England Puritans] were also very argumentative, and sometimes I would spend days and days trying to figure out what they’re arguing about – usually some theological point – and, then, when I would finally understand it, I would realize ‘oh, this isn’t interesting.’ I would have to throw that away.” – Sarah Vowell
Or, when I was writing about presidential assassinations, that book ends talking about the Lincoln Memorial because it’s kind of the culmination of all of this memorializing of these presidents. It took decades to build that thing. And there were a series of commissions and meetings and arguments about how it was going to look and who was going to build it and what it was supposed to be about, and which version of Lincoln would be celebrated. I read all about that. I learned about it. I even wrote it up – and then I realized this does not matter at all, and it’s really dull. So I had to cut that out.
When it comes to writing, especially the older I get, I just keep cutting and cutting – sometimes to the point where I just delete everything, which is not terribly remunerative, but it’s always because I’m trying to focus on the drama or something emotional or an idea or something funny or strange. Something that will elicit a kind of reaction. And a lot of times that involves narrowing things down. So editing is a huge part of writing to me.
Emily Votaw:
Do you have any advice for aspiring nonfiction writers?
Sarah Vowell:
It’s a completely different climate now than the one I came up in – because I started before the internet. I started in weekly newspapers, most of which have shut down. I probably don’t have a lot of wisdom to impart, but I think the process of just becoming a better writer, regardless of whatever form you’re writing in or who your audience is – is really just about getting lots of experience writing. I’ve always been a freelance writer – but at first I was a freelance journalist; which meant having many deadlines every week, sometimes more than one deadline a day. I could not probably work at that pace now – I’m just too old and slow. But, I was lucky to have had that experience when I was young – just writing so much – just constantly cranking out the copy. The ability to write became a part of my innards, like a muscle, kind of.
And then, because you are writing so much, you just make so many mistakes and you just learn what works and how you would say things. My advice to aspiring writers, always, in the beginning: it’s a volume business. Write as much as you can, and that in and of itself is valuable. One of the most educational things about it is how you end up embarrassing yourself in public. That’s when you learn, ‘oh, I don’t want to make that mistake again,’ or ‘I’m not as good at that particular thing.’
I was a music writer when I was younger. As I was getting a little older, it was just hard to live that life; to go out every night and be at bars all the time – staying out until one o’clock in the morning every night when I had all those freelance jobs. And I remember a really good rock critic named Chuck Eddy writing about how he goes to these rock shows, and he just stands there and waits for them to be over. And that was just such an epiphany to me because I realized that’s what I was doing. It made me understand myself better, and understand what works for me – which is one of the things about adulthood in general – not just about getting better at your job.