The Lowells of Massachusetts: An American Family by Nina Sankovitch

St. Martin’s Press, 2017

Move over David McCullough and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Here comes author Nina Sankovitch with an epic saga centered on the Lowell family of Massachusetts. The richly researched history is an important microcosm for books like McCollough’s John Adams, Kearns Goodwin’s The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga, and Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life.

Sankovitch takes us through five centuries of a family steeped in civic leadership, the ministry, the mills, the American Revolution, capitalism, poetry, the Civil War, abolition, strikes and suffrage for women. Sankovitch’s writing is poetic, bringing the characters and content to light in a compelling way. Her insights into the motivations and emotions of those she writes about are thought provoking. Her rendering of grief  borne by family members who lost sons in the Civil War is heart wrenching.

Sankovitch is an artist at setting the scenes of everyday life in vivid detail — from mourning cherished possessions left behind, the creaking and moaning sounds of a ship at sea, the sun filtering though curtains in a home library — to the scent of lilacs in the gardens of an estate at Sevenels.

The book is full of historical surprises, such as Massachusetts abolitionists moving to Kansas to help sway the vote against slavery. A single read through doesn’t do this book justice. It must be savored and set among one’s treasured volumes.

— Gina Ryan

My painting, “Cold Shoulder,” is in the 8th Annual Naked in New Hope Art Show at the Sidetracks Art Gallery, 2 A Stockton Avenue, New Hope, Pennsylvania. The opening reception is at 6 PM, Saturday, September 6th. The show continues through October 25th. Pictured above, right, is Sidetracks co-owner, Paul Murphy with Gina Ryan at the 2012 show. 

2014 NINH Poster

I am an author – artist with an unconventional life that I sometimes wish were fiction. My manuscript, “Benign Presence: the Secrets and Storms of a Brokeback Marriage” reads like a novel. Although this is my first book, I’ve been a magazine publisher, columnist, newsletter editor and all-around business writer. Books written by family and friends have a special spot in my library. My bookshelves, if stretched end-to-end, would be as long as a third of a football field. And that doesn’t include the e-books on my Kindle!

Most of my career has been spent as a senior executive in the not-for-profit sector where I advocated for gender equity, health promotion and access to medical care. I am cause-oriented and recently marched in front of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City in support of the Nun’s Justice Project. When the occasion warrants, I stand up for the ordination of women priests and the restoration of married persons to the priesthood. I prefer humble piety to self-serving pomposity and don’t believe that medieval mediocrity is an inspired model for modern spirituality.

Fifty years after winning a prize, I discovered that the tubes of watercolor paint I’d been saving had all dried up, so I decided to get some fresh supplies and give art another try. My work has recently been exhibited at the annual Naked in New Hope show at the Sidetracks Art Gallery in Pennsylvania.

 I love watching my alma mater play basketball, arranging fresh flowers, reading cookbooks while I’m eating lunch, drinking chardonnay with friends, and reading in front of a fireplace. You’d probably be less likely to find me working out at the Y, than seeing me at an event at the library, or enjoying a glass of iced tea at an outdoor table at a local eatery.

Cheers!