Winter in the Blood

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Welch, James, Adult Book / Fiction / General / Welch, James
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Welch, James	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Welch, James	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Welch, James	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Narrated by a young Native American living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana, Winter in the Blood is the unforgettable story of a man living out the tragedy of his people. Intelligent sensitive, and self destructive he is haunted by the untimely deaths of his father and older brother and the shards of his once proud heritage. He sleepwalks through his days working on his stepfather's cattle ranch and consoles himself with alcohol and women. An ironic epiphany provides a tie to the vast land of his ancestors and an alternative to despair.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A classic submitted by redwood on June 30, 2023, 6:00pm This is a short novel, and a somewhat enigmatic one. If you’re looking for a traditional narrative progression with a straightforward plot and satisfying resolution, you will be disappointed. In a lot of ways, it reads like a novel of a drug-fueled bender, but is much more grounded. It’s not really a bender for the narrator—it’s just his life in a period of identity crisis, and absurdity and dissociation are just part of the fabric of it. So the novel is much more about atmosphere, self-understanding, and relationality than plot.

Nominally, the precipitating event of the novel is the narrator coming home from drinking to discover his wife has run away with his gun and electric razor, and he has to go out searching for her. Yet as he tries to track her down, a million other strange things occur, strange figures come upon his path. The attention to detail, humorous and disgusting, is notable. And more than anything, he’s thinking about himself and his family—his mother, who has just remarried; his ailing grandmother; his long-dead father; and other relations who emerge as the novel continues. Where—and who—does he come from, and where is he going?