"One day I realize that my entire back seat is filled with relatives who wonder why I'm not paying more attention to their part of the family story. . . . Sooner or later they all come up to the front seat and whisper stories in my ear."

Growing up in the 1950s in suburban Minneapolis, Diane Wilson had a family like everybody else's. Her Swedish American father was a salesman at Sears and her mother drove her brothers to baseball practice and went to parent-teacher conferences.

But in her thirties, Diane began to wonder why her mother didn't speak of her past. So she...

When Oyuna was a baby, a horse accidentally crushed her foot, cursing her family with bad luck. Oyuna vows to restore good fortune to her family - but how?