{"product_id":"the-whited-air-susie-paul-9781646626366","title":"The Whited Air: Mary Paul in Winter","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Radical empathy,\" Jeanie Thompson, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Myth of Water\u003c\/em\u003e, a book of poems written through the persona of Helen Keller, describes the process of work like her own. \"Historical persona poetry\" is not new, but especially significant in an age in which experts decry the lack of fellow feeling among us and its dark consequences. \u003cem\u003eThe Whited Air \u003c\/em\u003erichly imagines and expresses what it would have felt like for a teenaged girl to leave her father and their farm on her own to join a legion of such girls working in Lowell, MA, at the textile mills, in more contemporary terms, finding oneself in a world utterly unfamiliar, a world that no longer feels like home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe protagonist Mary Paul, a real girl, is experiencing firsthand the great shift in 19th-century America from a rural world of home industry and barter to the economy and factories of the Industrial Revolution. She is working hard and long in a way almost beyond our ability to imagine. But that is the task of \u003cem\u003eThe Whited Air. \u003c\/em\u003eAnd as exhausted as she is, she is still able to aspire to a more intellectual life, to spiritual fulfillment, even to living in a utopia. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fictional Irish mill girl, Brigid, counters and expresses anger at being invisible to girls like Mary though working alongside her, to the extreme bias the Irish faced upon immigrating here, the alien feeling of being a devout and Irish Catholic among Protestants, finally, a longing for the familiar.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe original inspiration for this book is Andrew Hudgins' book about Sidney Lanier, \u003cem\u003eAfter the Lost War, \u003c\/em\u003eanother group of deeply imagined poems about a historical figure. Mary Paul was not a poet like Lanier whose voice was heard in his own time. I hope\u003cem\u003eThe Whited Air \u003c\/em\u003eensures that her voice, as imagined, and representative of that of so many women, will now be heard.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Susie Paul\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1646626362\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781646626366\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Finishing Line Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/01\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 44\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.15lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.11d","brand":"Susie Paul","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44128084754687,"sku":"9781646626366","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_4bf62ea8-b36d-40ca-8206-e6cc325c318e.jpg?v=1687456859","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-whited-air-susie-paul-9781646626366","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}