David Kherdian is announcing his just-published book, Blackfoot Whitefoot: The life of James Willard Schultz, which is available on Amazon.
Schultz was the first writer to capture my imagination, to realize much later that he was my first literary influence. I was as fascinated by his life as much as I was his work, because I saw certain parallels of his life in myself.
James Willard Schultz was the first white man to penetrate the Blackfeet tribe, participating in their rituals, buffalo hunts, horse trading and stealing, all the while keeping notes, with the intention of one day recording their history. When his wife died he left the tribe and moved to California, where he began to write stories, novels and memoirs of his time with the Blackfeet Indians of Montana. This biography of his early years with the tribe is an outstanding adventure story and also a love story of two people, who are strangers to each other at the start, but grow in understanding and love through their devotion to one another.
