{"product_id":"whitebird-1","title":"Whitebird","description":"\u003cp\u003eMy grandparents were Finnish immigrants who homesteaded in Montana in 1890. They were pioneers, but not in the winning of the west kind of way. Because they died before I was born, and their records were lost, I had to put together their story from sories I was told by my father and other relatives. Because of the multiple voices, I used a hybrid, a poly-vocal, multi-genre form. Also I wanted to open, in places, to a more associative use of words, poetry perhaps, as the use of words is important to me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy grandfather--Gus Johnson, Gusti, The Old Man--was a miner and an alcoholic, mean when he was drinking or needing a drink. My father didn't like him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy grandmother, Hilda, was in the old country considered a shaman, but in the new world she was called a midwife. Finland being at the remote edge of Europe, many ancient traditions--rune singing and shamanic healing--remained well into the Nineteenth and even Twentieth Centuries. She was a healer who used cups and often exchanged information with her neighbors--the Crow or Apsalooke tribe. For these transactions she often sent my father, her youngest, to their village. When my grandfather was declared dead after a mine accident, she brought him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheir story was a story of stories--healing, cooperation, even shipbuilding. \u003ci\u003eWhitebird\u003c\/i\u003e is a hybrid history told from these stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jim Johnson","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":67829077410109,"sku":"9798234034724","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0477\/8731\/1254\/files\/9798234034724ita_28c75656-c496-486d-8912-7f6a88e777ed.jpg?v=1793131486","url":"https:\/\/itascabooks.com\/products\/whitebird-1","provider":"Itasca Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}