Mormon healer and folk poet

the long version

"Brady brings an eclectic, interdisciplinary approach to her reconstruction of the previously uncelebrated life of a superficially ordinary and obscure, though actually quite remarkable, woman. Drawing on reflexive ethnography, Brady emphasizes her own involvement with her subject and with the multiple discourses that, in combination, give her access to Mary Fowler's identity. She encourages her readers to collaborate in piecing together the meaning of Mary's life, reading her autobiographical texts and those by others in juxtaposition with Brady's understanding of that life, and participating in the construction of Mary Fowler's "self," an identity she built through her poetry, life writings, and community service and which Margaret Brady has reconstructed through this thoughtful biography."--BOOK JACKET.