Writing History, My Own and Others’
I am the author of four published books. My latest book, American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution, along with all my books, can be ordered here.
“Nina Sankovitch pens another tour de force as she dives into the tight-knit web of colonial families that propelled the American Revolution…hugely enjoyable … AMERICAN REBELS succeeds marvelously in putting human faces on the American Revolution and showing readers how seismic events rippled outward from door-to-door intimacy.” — Christian Science Monitor
In its starred review of American Rebels, the Library Journal wrote: “Sankovitch has woven a compelling, potent chronicle of members of three principal American families that will be valued by readers of American history at all levels.”
“American Rebels reminds us that as momentous events unfolded, the stuff of daily life carried on — courtships, marriages, family gatherings; houses were constructed, careers furthered, gout and consumption endured by some.” — Wall Street Journal
“Best-selling author Nina Sankovitch has given us a magnificent, solid work on the life, times and people who helped guide the American colonies to freedom from English rule….
Sankovitch has combined detailed research and reporting and a critically straightforward conversational writing style that puts her readers in the hearts and minds of participants and, more important, offers us fresh perspective of the events leading to revolution here.” — The Martha’s Vineyard Times
Publishers Weekly also praised American Rebels: “Historian Sankovitch (The Lowells of Massachusetts) explores the family connections and revolutionary politics shared by John Hancock, John and Abigail Adams, and Josiah Quincy Jr., in this richly detailed and fluidly written account…Sankovitch leavens her deeply researched account with wit, and presents a persuasive and entertaining portrait of life in colonial Boston. Revolutionary War buffs will savor this thoughtful addition to popular histories of the period.”
Booklist recommended American Rebels: “Sankovitch lays out the evolution of eighteenth-century political thought and shows how it arose within these families and their interconnections. Students of American Revolution history will find a fresh perspective here.”
American Rebels “is certainly an eye-opener. And in this time of isolation, her work exploring another small New England town in an equally fraught time can help us better appreciate both place and time. Sankovitch traces the route by which loyal British subjects grew to oppose the king, fight for freedom and lead a fledgling country into existence. You may not know those patriots beyond names from history. But they were living, breathing men and women, with passion, pride, contradictions, foibles, strength, talent, worries and fears. The author brings them to life, explaining their relationships with each other and with the town that helped make them who they are.” — Dan Woog, Westport News
Goodreads named American Rebels one of “the most highly anticipated new and upcoming nonfiction… books readers can’t wait to crack open…” And James Comey, former FBI director and author of A Higher Loyalty wrote, “American Rebels is a fascinating and richly detailed story of three New England families who emerged from their small world to change ours forever.”
In American Rebels, I explore the roles of the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy families in fomenting the American Revolution. The book follows the intertwined lives of John Hancock, John Adams, Josiah Quincy Junior, Abigail Smith Adams, and Dorothy Quincy Hancock, all of whom spent their childhoods in Braintree, Massachusetts.
Curious about the history of Braintree — how is it that so many leaders of revolution all came from this tiny village? — I dove into its archives and histories, and began to research the lives of these young men and women, following their trajectory from childhood through the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776. I not only discovered what they all shared — what drove them to become leaders of the rebellion against England — but I also came to understand how the desire for independence cut across class lines, and how families could be divided, rebels versus loyalists, in pursuing commonly-held goals of opportunity, liberty, and stability.
My first book, published by HarperCollins, is titled Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading. My memoir tells the story of how reading helped me continue on in the world after my oldest sister died of cancer, and also relates the history of my family: my immigrant parents with their three girls, struggling and thriving in the Midwest while carrying aching memories of World War II.
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair was hailed as “an outstanding debut” by Kirkus Reviews and designated a “book to read now” by Oprah. It was widely hailed as an ode to the joys and comforts of reading, including by The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, Bookpage, Publishers’s Weekly, and Booklist.
My second book, titled Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing (published by Simon & Schuster), is a history of letter writing, written after I found a treasure of letters in the backyard of a decrepit brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The letters had been written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century from a son to his mother, and included the daily notes he sent to her during his four years at Princeton.
My discovery of the letters of James Seligman, along with my lifelong love of letters and the fact that my oldest son was leaving for college — would he ever write to me? — sent me off on a quest to understand the history of letter writing, and to define the qualities of letters that make them so special.
Oprah hailed Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing, as a book “every joy-seeking woman needs to read” and my second book also received celebratory reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Review, Library Journal, and Booklist.
I did a TED talk about the joys of letter writing, which can be viewed here.
My third book of history was sparked by research I attempted to conduct while writing my book on letters. Long fascinated by the poets Amy Lowell, James Russell Lowell, and Robert Lowell, I searched for Lowell family letters while researching Signed, Sealed, Delivered and was horrified to discover the family had a tradition of burning correspondence posthumously. But with diligence and determination, I was able to discover troves of Lowell family letters scattered throughout archives and collections, and I decided to write a multi-generational history of this fascinating family.
The Lowells of Massachusetts: An American Family, my third book and the first to be published by St. Martin’s Press, tells the story of the Lowell family, from Percival Lowle’s arrival in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639 through the blazing of Amy Lowell’s poetic glory in the early twentieth century.
The Wall Street Journal hailed The Lowells of Massachusettsas “[A] stirring saga …Vivid and intimate, Ms. Sankovitch’s account entertains us with Puritans and preachers, Tories and rebels, abolitionists and industrialists, lecturers and poets…Ms. Sankovitch has made a compelling contribution to Massachusetts and American History.”
“Meet American’s Most Extraordinary Family: the Lowells of Massachusetts,” said The Washington Post: “Sankovitch has searched out these letters to write the powerful story of one of America’s most extraordinary families, a family that helped shape the course of American history in dramatic and decisive ways…By the final pages of this volume, one feels deeply attached to the individual Lowells, while also exhilarated at having experienced this grand sweep of American history.“
“[Sankovitch’s] skillful blending of context and detail makes the vicissitudes of one family emblematic of a nation’s,” proclaimed The New Yorker.
The Connecticut Post called it, “an astonishingly compact 328 pages (considering how much family history it covers) and reads like a fine novel. You might be reminded of one of those deep digs into history and storytelling that James Michener used to do in his novels “Hawaii” and “Chesapeake.”
“A fascinating collective biography … paying tribute to both worthy individuals and everyone else in this prominent, complicated family,” said Booklist.
The Library Journal also recommended The Lowells of Massachusetts:“Sankovitch’s use of interpretative passages breathe color into descriptions of home life of various Lowells, adding an artistic dimension to the account. Her ability to switch the focus among the family members while keeping readers fully engaged in the narrative is a significant achievement.”
“A sturdy, busy multibiography of an eminent American family… Exhaustive work by a clear admirer and dogged researcher,” said Kirkus Reviews.
