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Winter in the Blood
A contemporary classic from a major writer of the Native American renaissance.
During his life, James Welch came to be regarded as a master of American prose, and his first novel, Winter in the Blood , is one of his most enduring works. The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by personal tragedy, the dissolution of his once proud heritage, and Montana's vast emptiness. Winter in the Blood is an evocative and unforgettable work of literature that will continue to move and inspire anyone who encounters it.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
During his life, James Welch came to be regarded as a master of American prose, and his first novel, Winter in the Blood , is one of his most enduring works. The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by personal tragedy, the dissolution of his once proud heritage, and Montana's vast emptiness. Winter in the Blood is an evocative and unforgettable work of literature that will continue to move and inspire anyone who encounters it.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
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8790 people want to read
About the author
James Welch
53 books227 followersJames Welch was a Blackfeet author who wrote several novels considered part of the Native American Renaissance literary movement. He is best known for his novel "Fools Crow" (1986).
His works explore the experiences of Native Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. He worked with Paul Stekler on the documentary "Last Stand at Little Bighorn" which aired on PBS.
His works explore the experiences of Native Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. He worked with Paul Stekler on the documentary "Last Stand at Little Bighorn" which aired on PBS.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 524 reviews
August 20, 2024
WOUNDED KNEE
Nell’omonimo film del 2013, l’anonimo protagonista del romanzo assume invece il nome di Virgil First Raise.
Nei suoi occhi neri vedevo la ragione per cui quella volta l’avevo portata a csa: promettevano calore, una ricchezza interiore che andava ben oltre la sua vita miserabile passata a bere e a scopare, piena di uomini come me.
Per passare da una situazione (scena?) all’altra, mai agevolare il passaggio con uno scivolo, James Welch preferisce farlo con un salto, a volte piccolo a volte più pirotecnico: capita di chiedersi da un paragrafo o capitolo all’altro, chi sia chi, dove, chi stia esattamente dicendo cosa e perché.
La consolidata tradizione – forse la stessa che individua nel maggiordomo l’eterno colpevole – punterebbe il dito sulla traduzione – che in effetti, come l’edizione, ha i suoi anni, al punto che i nativi americani sono ancora chiamati indiani come nei film di John Wayne (che gli “indiani” avrebbe preferito servirli grigliati, e comunque nei suoi film di veri nativi non ce n’erano, solo comparse truccate malino), e al punto che una nota introduttiva del traduttore spiega la scelta di avere lasciato i nomi dei personaggi “indiani” in originale, invece di tradurli (un po’ come se qualcuno chiedesse scusa per aver lasciato William Shakespeare invece di Guglielmo LanciaScrollata).
La parte centrale del romanzo conduce il protagonista per bar e stanze di motel nei piccoli centri della zona alla ricerca di alcol e sesso.
Ad attenuare questa forma di asprezza, per me hanno aiutato le descrizioni della natura e degli animali del Montana: la sua parte rurale a ridosso di piccoli centri urbani, i campi, i fossi, gli alberi, cervi e alci, i cieli addolciscono.
Così come l’avere a protagonisti dei nativi americani creati da uno di loro (James Welch era un Blackfeet, nella quarta di copertina debitamente tradotto in Piedi Neri – e d’altronde, anche la versione inglese è comunque una forzatura): un po’ come ritrovare amici d’infanzia che il tempo e la vita hanno disperso e allontanato. Quegli esseri umani che, come tanti altri nativi, si sono trovati a nascere nel tempo e nel lato del confine sbagliato. Ma suvvia, vorremo mica ancora sostenere la muffita teoria delle colpe degli occidentali che mentre colonizzavano portavano civiltà e progresso?
Ecco cosa si rimedia lasciando la riserva e andando a caccia di bevute e gonne.
In cima alla tomba c’era una lapide rettangolare di granito su cui era scolpito il nome, John First Raise, e le due date entro le quali era riuscito a rimanere in vita. Non diceva niente di quanto gli piacesse aggiustare i macchinari e ridere con i bianchi di Dodson, o di come fosse morto assiderato, rigido come una tavola, nella buca sterrata degli Earthboy.
Ma anche se nel loro cimitero privato la lapide è in granito, sulla tomba che un solo giorno non fu sufficiente a scavare, la croce è di polistirolo, alla quale sono legati due fiori di plastica sporchi.
È bella la progressione di questo breve romanzo che dopo la presentazione dei personaggi, porta il protagonista in un lungo giro urbano tra bevute, strani incontri, donne, avventure, e che si chiude con il ritorno alla fattoria, dove il cerchio è partito e sembra chiudersi. Il giovane ricuce il passato, le due morti che si porta nel cuore, quella del fratello quattordicenne in un incidente sul lavoro – messo sotto da un’auto sull’autostrada mentre stava facendo attraversare la mandria – e quella del padre morto assiderato in un fosso, attraverso la vecchia mucca, un po’ isterica, che sta finendo sommersa nel fango e viene tratta in salvo con l’aiuto del vecchio cavallo, altro animale un po’ matto.
Il mio riferimento a Wounded Knee, luogo celebre per un massacro di nativi a opera delle giacche blu, luogo simbolo del genocidio che i nativi hanno subito, è un riferimento al ginocchio ferito, malandato, più volte operato del protagonista, rimasto schiacciato sotto il cavallo imbizzarrito proprio in occasione della morte del fratello maggiore.
Ma l’elemento per così dire folkloristico incide solo in misura contenuta: Welch racconta la storia di tanti attraverso quella di un uomo di trentadue anni, che rimane sempre senza nome, che il patrigno insiste a chiamare ragazzo, che vive coltivando e allevando nella proprietà di famiglia con la durezza che la vita dei campi sempre comporta, un giovane uomo che cerca un suo posto nel mondo, che cerca il senso della sua e della vita in genere.
Il libro è il primo scritto da un nativo americano a essere tradotto in italiano (1978).
Il film è diretto dai fratelli Alex e Andrew Smith.
Nell’omonimo film del 2013, l’anonimo protagonista del romanzo assume invece il nome di Virgil First Raise.
Nei suoi occhi neri vedevo la ragione per cui quella volta l’avevo portata a csa: promettevano calore, una ricchezza interiore che andava ben oltre la sua vita miserabile passata a bere e a scopare, piena di uomini come me.
Per passare da una situazione (scena?) all’altra, mai agevolare il passaggio con uno scivolo, James Welch preferisce farlo con un salto, a volte piccolo a volte più pirotecnico: capita di chiedersi da un paragrafo o capitolo all’altro, chi sia chi, dove, chi stia esattamente dicendo cosa e perché.
La consolidata tradizione – forse la stessa che individua nel maggiordomo l’eterno colpevole – punterebbe il dito sulla traduzione – che in effetti, come l’edizione, ha i suoi anni, al punto che i nativi americani sono ancora chiamati indiani come nei film di John Wayne (che gli “indiani” avrebbe preferito servirli grigliati, e comunque nei suoi film di veri nativi non ce n’erano, solo comparse truccate malino), e al punto che una nota introduttiva del traduttore spiega la scelta di avere lasciato i nomi dei personaggi “indiani” in originale, invece di tradurli (un po’ come se qualcuno chiedesse scusa per aver lasciato William Shakespeare invece di Guglielmo LanciaScrollata).
La parte centrale del romanzo conduce il protagonista per bar e stanze di motel nei piccoli centri della zona alla ricerca di alcol e sesso.
Ad attenuare questa forma di asprezza, per me hanno aiutato le descrizioni della natura e degli animali del Montana: la sua parte rurale a ridosso di piccoli centri urbani, i campi, i fossi, gli alberi, cervi e alci, i cieli addolciscono.
Così come l’avere a protagonisti dei nativi americani creati da uno di loro (James Welch era un Blackfeet, nella quarta di copertina debitamente tradotto in Piedi Neri – e d’altronde, anche la versione inglese è comunque una forzatura): un po’ come ritrovare amici d’infanzia che il tempo e la vita hanno disperso e allontanato. Quegli esseri umani che, come tanti altri nativi, si sono trovati a nascere nel tempo e nel lato del confine sbagliato. Ma suvvia, vorremo mica ancora sostenere la muffita teoria delle colpe degli occidentali che mentre colonizzavano portavano civiltà e progresso?
Ecco cosa si rimedia lasciando la riserva e andando a caccia di bevute e gonne.
In cima alla tomba c’era una lapide rettangolare di granito su cui era scolpito il nome, John First Raise, e le due date entro le quali era riuscito a rimanere in vita. Non diceva niente di quanto gli piacesse aggiustare i macchinari e ridere con i bianchi di Dodson, o di come fosse morto assiderato, rigido come una tavola, nella buca sterrata degli Earthboy.
Ma anche se nel loro cimitero privato la lapide è in granito, sulla tomba che un solo giorno non fu sufficiente a scavare, la croce è di polistirolo, alla quale sono legati due fiori di plastica sporchi.
È bella la progressione di questo breve romanzo che dopo la presentazione dei personaggi, porta il protagonista in un lungo giro urbano tra bevute, strani incontri, donne, avventure, e che si chiude con il ritorno alla fattoria, dove il cerchio è partito e sembra chiudersi. Il giovane ricuce il passato, le due morti che si porta nel cuore, quella del fratello quattordicenne in un incidente sul lavoro – messo sotto da un’auto sull’autostrada mentre stava facendo attraversare la mandria – e quella del padre morto assiderato in un fosso, attraverso la vecchia mucca, un po’ isterica, che sta finendo sommersa nel fango e viene tratta in salvo con l’aiuto del vecchio cavallo, altro animale un po’ matto.
Il mio riferimento a Wounded Knee, luogo celebre per un massacro di nativi a opera delle giacche blu, luogo simbolo del genocidio che i nativi hanno subito, è un riferimento al ginocchio ferito, malandato, più volte operato del protagonista, rimasto schiacciato sotto il cavallo imbizzarrito proprio in occasione della morte del fratello maggiore.
Ma l’elemento per così dire folkloristico incide solo in misura contenuta: Welch racconta la storia di tanti attraverso quella di un uomo di trentadue anni, che rimane sempre senza nome, che il patrigno insiste a chiamare ragazzo, che vive coltivando e allevando nella proprietà di famiglia con la durezza che la vita dei campi sempre comporta, un giovane uomo che cerca un suo posto nel mondo, che cerca il senso della sua e della vita in genere.
Il libro è il primo scritto da un nativo americano a essere tradotto in italiano (1978).
Il film è diretto dai fratelli Alex e Andrew Smith.
![Profile Image for s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1735525095i%2F6431467._UX200_CR0%2C11%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
November 23, 2024
Betrayal and bloodshed have long marked the struggles of indigenous communities in the United States against the government and in James Welch’s Winter in the Blood they are waiting to strike at any turn of the page. When Welch’s unnamed and unstable indigenous narrator returns home bruised and battered from a bar fight to discover his girlfriend has split with his gun in tow, he sets off across an unwelcoming midwest on an odyssey beleaguered by ‘stalking white men,’ a haunted past full of loss, and his own frail sense of self. Straightforward to the point of nearly surreal in its hard prose of harsh events, Winter in the Blood is a tale of alienation and trauma as the narrator stumbles between mishaps less in search of his lost girlfriend and more in search of himself. A harrowing and haunting little book.
‘But the distance I felt came not from country or people; it came from within me. I was as distant from myself as a hawk from the moon.’
James Welch, a member of the Blackfeet tribe, was consider a major writer in what would come to be called the Native American Renaissance, a period beginning in the late 1960s that saw a sudden boost in Indigenous literature being published following the critical and commercial success of N. Scott Momaday’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel House Made of Dawn. His first novel, Winter in the Blood, is a powerful spotlight on a fraught sense of identity that arises amidst feelings of alienation that would come to mark this period of literature. Adrift in a country that has oppresses and attempted to erase indigenous identity, the nameless narrator ‘flounders to find grounding in a tale that does not bear transcendence,’ as fellow poet and figure of the Native American Renaissance Joy Harjo writes in the novel’s forward. Winter in the Blood marks a shift from the indigenous narratives of past generations that tended to find the protagonists returning and embracing their cultural heritage, yet here we see the narrator at a remove from his heritage and fumbling to make sense of his fractured identity while also being repulsed by the notion of assimilation into a white culture than has repelled him and his ancestors for generations. Colonialism enfolds everything around the narrator in this story that becomes nearly elegiac for the traditions and culture that seems to elude him, always at a distance in his soul.
This distance felt by the narrator is not specific to just ideas of identity either and much of the novel concerns his inability to form stable attachments to anyone or anything due to his sense of alienation that becomes less suffocating and more a deathly numbness. ‘I felt no hatred, no love, no guilt, no conscience,’ he thinks, ‘nothing but a distance that had grown through the years.’ The prose reflects this cold emotional state with a noir-like directness and icy hardness unadorned by the more poetic phrasing found in Welch’s poetry.
‘Everything had gone out of me, and I felt the kind of peace that comes over one when he is alone, when he no longer cares for warmth, or sunshine, or possessions…’
There is a heart wrenching sense of loss that permeates the pages here, from the girlfriend gone away to the loss of his father and brother in the past and one begins to understand his desire to escape, to run 'not always following down the road, but always straight ahead until your heart would explode.' Such a headlong plunge into the depths of life and grief lead the narrative through scenes of drinks, depression and near-death encounters where we can understand the narrator as a man adrift in his quest to process grief, bashing himself against the hard edges of life hoping to shake it loose if he cannot assuage it himself. But such grief cannot be shaken and eventually he must face the memories that trail him like ghosts.
For being so blunt and brutal, Winter in the Blood still reads like a quiet work, but one that gets under your skin and pulls the feelings of dread and disorientation around you like a blanket. It is a novel of fractured identity and failing relationships all set alight in a maelstrom of chaos as attempts of escape continuously collide with violence. Yet, at the end of the day, this is also a novel about finding one’s own place in the lineage of chaos and choosing to seek a brighter path forward. There is a rather unfortunate taste of misogyny to much of the story, always awash in the self-hatred and frustrations of feeling without a land or identity which make this quite a bitter bite of a book. Still, it is a moving little story and one that has cemented itself as a critical work of indigenous literature in the US and James Welch’s Winter in the Blood is a haunting yet worthwhile read.
3.5/5
'Some people, I thought, will never know how pleasant it is to be distant in a clean rain, the driving rain of a summer storm. It's not like you'd expect, nothing like you'd expect.’
‘But the distance I felt came not from country or people; it came from within me. I was as distant from myself as a hawk from the moon.’
James Welch, a member of the Blackfeet tribe, was consider a major writer in what would come to be called the Native American Renaissance, a period beginning in the late 1960s that saw a sudden boost in Indigenous literature being published following the critical and commercial success of N. Scott Momaday’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel House Made of Dawn. His first novel, Winter in the Blood, is a powerful spotlight on a fraught sense of identity that arises amidst feelings of alienation that would come to mark this period of literature. Adrift in a country that has oppresses and attempted to erase indigenous identity, the nameless narrator ‘flounders to find grounding in a tale that does not bear transcendence,’ as fellow poet and figure of the Native American Renaissance Joy Harjo writes in the novel’s forward. Winter in the Blood marks a shift from the indigenous narratives of past generations that tended to find the protagonists returning and embracing their cultural heritage, yet here we see the narrator at a remove from his heritage and fumbling to make sense of his fractured identity while also being repulsed by the notion of assimilation into a white culture than has repelled him and his ancestors for generations. Colonialism enfolds everything around the narrator in this story that becomes nearly elegiac for the traditions and culture that seems to elude him, always at a distance in his soul.
This distance felt by the narrator is not specific to just ideas of identity either and much of the novel concerns his inability to form stable attachments to anyone or anything due to his sense of alienation that becomes less suffocating and more a deathly numbness. ‘I felt no hatred, no love, no guilt, no conscience,’ he thinks, ‘nothing but a distance that had grown through the years.’ The prose reflects this cold emotional state with a noir-like directness and icy hardness unadorned by the more poetic phrasing found in Welch’s poetry.
‘Everything had gone out of me, and I felt the kind of peace that comes over one when he is alone, when he no longer cares for warmth, or sunshine, or possessions…’
There is a heart wrenching sense of loss that permeates the pages here, from the girlfriend gone away to the loss of his father and brother in the past and one begins to understand his desire to escape, to run 'not always following down the road, but always straight ahead until your heart would explode.' Such a headlong plunge into the depths of life and grief lead the narrative through scenes of drinks, depression and near-death encounters where we can understand the narrator as a man adrift in his quest to process grief, bashing himself against the hard edges of life hoping to shake it loose if he cannot assuage it himself. But such grief cannot be shaken and eventually he must face the memories that trail him like ghosts.
For being so blunt and brutal, Winter in the Blood still reads like a quiet work, but one that gets under your skin and pulls the feelings of dread and disorientation around you like a blanket. It is a novel of fractured identity and failing relationships all set alight in a maelstrom of chaos as attempts of escape continuously collide with violence. Yet, at the end of the day, this is also a novel about finding one’s own place in the lineage of chaos and choosing to seek a brighter path forward. There is a rather unfortunate taste of misogyny to much of the story, always awash in the self-hatred and frustrations of feeling without a land or identity which make this quite a bitter bite of a book. Still, it is a moving little story and one that has cemented itself as a critical work of indigenous literature in the US and James Welch’s Winter in the Blood is a haunting yet worthwhile read.
3.5/5
'Some people, I thought, will never know how pleasant it is to be distant in a clean rain, the driving rain of a summer storm. It's not like you'd expect, nothing like you'd expect.’
April 23, 2013
This was my fourth James Welch novel and I still can't pin down what it is about his writing that I find so affecting. There is no visible effort to command your attention - no showy passages, no plot-bending events - just a slow-rolling flow of pages that sometimes don't even seem to have been written. The stories just kind of happen, pulling you in (matter-of-fact, whatever) so you don't so much as plunge in but float along and finally end up thinking about them long after you've turned the last page.
At any rate, that's the way they work on me.
Welch's title for this novel, his first, sets the tone. The young (well, 32, as he often points out) main character's life is pretty much on ice. He's alternately unguided and misguided as he sluggishly tries to go forward. His brain is stuck to frozen memories like a tongue on an icicle; it's too painful to just rip it off and nobody is around with the warm water. The guy needs to thaw out, and the novel covers a few days or a week during which that process starts to take place. Of course, that's just the surface of the narrative, and there is a rich subtext teeming underneath with plenty of reflections and analogies around themes relating earth, man, nature, sex, direction, animals, etc., not necessarily in that order. And in spite of all the grave themes, Welch has a subdued sense of humour that is not always obvious to "get" but that drifts back to you later.
See what I mean? I initially gave this 4 stars because I thought it was a bit too brief and truncated and I was left wanting more. But here I am, still thinking about it. So maybe less is more in this case: 5 full stars for staying power
At any rate, that's the way they work on me.
Welch's title for this novel, his first, sets the tone. The young (well, 32, as he often points out) main character's life is pretty much on ice. He's alternately unguided and misguided as he sluggishly tries to go forward. His brain is stuck to frozen memories like a tongue on an icicle; it's too painful to just rip it off and nobody is around with the warm water. The guy needs to thaw out, and the novel covers a few days or a week during which that process starts to take place. Of course, that's just the surface of the narrative, and there is a rich subtext teeming underneath with plenty of reflections and analogies around themes relating earth, man, nature, sex, direction, animals, etc., not necessarily in that order. And in spite of all the grave themes, Welch has a subdued sense of humour that is not always obvious to "get" but that drifts back to you later.
See what I mean? I initially gave this 4 stars because I thought it was a bit too brief and truncated and I was left wanting more. But here I am, still thinking about it. So maybe less is more in this case: 5 full stars for staying power
December 10, 2025
This is a review of my second read of this wonderful, sad novel.
Book #3 read for Native American Heritage Month, 2023
Rereading this sorrowful novel is truly one of the most haunting reading experiences I’ve had in a while. It is the story of an unnamed Blackfeet man in Montana trying to make sense of the wrenching losses of his beloved father and older brother, “you ran and ran for what must’ve seemed like miles, not always following down the road, but always straight ahead until your heart would explode” (Welch 115). It is about processing grief. It is about processing systemic racism and the inability to move past from the past—something holds you back when you can’t get out of your head.
It's a powerful book that also celebrates and respects the power of Mother Earth’s beauty and sorrow: spare landscapes of vast sparse dirt roads, horses, skies that are both calm, peaceful, and eerie, “a time of dusk, with wind that cuts through your clothes and your skin, though the meat of you, until it reaches your bones where it lodges itself” (Welch 110).
Welch’s book reminded me very much of Denis Johnson’s masterpiece “Jesus’ Son”, about a man in the elusive search for love and identity. Both Welch’s narrator and Mr. Johnson’s narrator, Fuck Head, are both sad sack, tedious men, marred by failed relationships with women, and past abusive relationships that stem from childhood.
But I can see that despite his flaws, and even his misogyny, Welch’s narrator is much more empathic than Johnson’s.
He must keep moving or else depression and manic, drunken benders will do him in. In one of contemporary literature’s saddest sex scenes, of where the Narrator picks up a buxom young woman named Marlene, who nurses him from a violent night out, I was terrified that this scene would escalate into a repellant scene of rape or sexual assault.
As the specter of violence lingered between both, the narrator ruefully states, “the same lack of emotion, the same curiosity, as though I were watching a bug floating motionless down an irrigation ditch, not yet dead, but having decided upon death” (Welch 99).
What began as a night of rough housing and the need to connect intimately—this brief scene shows Marlene and the narrator mirror each other’s need for connection. It moved me because its small, intimate scenes like this one are what I often search for and am attracted to in a story.
Like “Fool’s Crow”, spare and unflinching, yet meditative and human, this is essential reading.
Quick note: There’s a film adaptation that came out in 2013 that features rising star Lily Gladstone, produced by Sherman Alexie. I definitely would love to see it sometime.
Book #3 read for Native American Heritage Month, 2023
Rereading this sorrowful novel is truly one of the most haunting reading experiences I’ve had in a while. It is the story of an unnamed Blackfeet man in Montana trying to make sense of the wrenching losses of his beloved father and older brother, “you ran and ran for what must’ve seemed like miles, not always following down the road, but always straight ahead until your heart would explode” (Welch 115). It is about processing grief. It is about processing systemic racism and the inability to move past from the past—something holds you back when you can’t get out of your head.
It's a powerful book that also celebrates and respects the power of Mother Earth’s beauty and sorrow: spare landscapes of vast sparse dirt roads, horses, skies that are both calm, peaceful, and eerie, “a time of dusk, with wind that cuts through your clothes and your skin, though the meat of you, until it reaches your bones where it lodges itself” (Welch 110).
Welch’s book reminded me very much of Denis Johnson’s masterpiece “Jesus’ Son”, about a man in the elusive search for love and identity. Both Welch’s narrator and Mr. Johnson’s narrator, Fuck Head, are both sad sack, tedious men, marred by failed relationships with women, and past abusive relationships that stem from childhood.
But I can see that despite his flaws, and even his misogyny, Welch’s narrator is much more empathic than Johnson’s.
He must keep moving or else depression and manic, drunken benders will do him in. In one of contemporary literature’s saddest sex scenes, of where the Narrator picks up a buxom young woman named Marlene, who nurses him from a violent night out, I was terrified that this scene would escalate into a repellant scene of rape or sexual assault.
As the specter of violence lingered between both, the narrator ruefully states, “the same lack of emotion, the same curiosity, as though I were watching a bug floating motionless down an irrigation ditch, not yet dead, but having decided upon death” (Welch 99).
What began as a night of rough housing and the need to connect intimately—this brief scene shows Marlene and the narrator mirror each other’s need for connection. It moved me because its small, intimate scenes like this one are what I often search for and am attracted to in a story.
Like “Fool’s Crow”, spare and unflinching, yet meditative and human, this is essential reading.
Quick note: There’s a film adaptation that came out in 2013 that features rising star Lily Gladstone, produced by Sherman Alexie. I definitely would love to see it sometime.
November 16, 2023
🪶James Welch is Blackfoot and writes with strong and beautiful prose about his people. The Blackfoot live on both sides of the Montana-Alberta border. All his books are worthwhile ❄️
December 25, 2014
Beautifully written - sad and angry and full of wonderful evocations of landscape and nature. A key novel in the voicing of the Native American experience and well worth your time.
February 5, 2022
3.5 stars
Winter in the Blood is a modern classic that feels kind of like a noir Western. The prose is simple but often striking or even beautiful. Written by a Blackfeet author in the 1970's, it explores indigenous identity through a narrative that is sometimes quite unsettling and at moments feels like a fever dream.
In some ways it is very much a product of its time- including some racial slurs, frequent objectification of women, and a couple of disturbing scenes that feel "rapey" even if they don't entirely cross into sexual assault. All of which is also pretty in-line with the noir genre of the time. Despite all of that, I found myself very drawn into the world of the main character. The book is sometimes funny, quirky, and strange. There are some wtf moments, like that scene where an old man drops dead while eating oatmeal in a diner.
I don't think this book will be for everyone, but it's definitely interesting and offers a different window into indigenous life in 70's. One that neutrally describes both the good and the bad. It's a melancholy book, but there is a dark humor woven throughout as well.
Winter in the Blood is a modern classic that feels kind of like a noir Western. The prose is simple but often striking or even beautiful. Written by a Blackfeet author in the 1970's, it explores indigenous identity through a narrative that is sometimes quite unsettling and at moments feels like a fever dream.
In some ways it is very much a product of its time- including some racial slurs, frequent objectification of women, and a couple of disturbing scenes that feel "rapey" even if they don't entirely cross into sexual assault. All of which is also pretty in-line with the noir genre of the time. Despite all of that, I found myself very drawn into the world of the main character. The book is sometimes funny, quirky, and strange. There are some wtf moments, like that scene where an old man drops dead while eating oatmeal in a diner.
I don't think this book will be for everyone, but it's definitely interesting and offers a different window into indigenous life in 70's. One that neutrally describes both the good and the bad. It's a melancholy book, but there is a dark humor woven throughout as well.
November 19, 2023
“Again I felt that helplessness of being in a world of stalking white men.” (p. 120)
Underneath cottonwood trees, in the shadow of ever-present racism, with town bars, alcoholics, and open land all around, the Native Americans in this novel struggle with what to make of their lives and heritage. From a white Catholic priest who refuses to come onto the reservation or to bury Native Americans in their own cemetery, to a history of family starvation during winter because of the need to flee from the “Long Knives” (i.e., white soldiers), racism waits at every turn for the characters in this novel. But there is also strained in-group solidarity among the Native Americans themselves, evidenced by the tendency to distrust and even turn on each other.
“You must understand how people think in desperate times.” (p. 154)
“So she sat in the rocker and plotted ways to kill the girl who was thought to be my wife … Though almost a century old, almost blind and certainly toothless, she wanted to murder the girl, to avenge those many sins committed by generations of Crees.” (pp. 33-34)
At the core of the novel, which is set in the mid-20th century on (and near; e.g., in nearby towns) a reservation in Montana, is the theme of loss among Native Americans—the loss of loved ones, the loss of identity, the loss of felt purpose, the loss of an understanding of one’s heritage and genealogy. Promising careers are lost to racism. Family members are lost to drink, to the cold, and to accidents.
“Its shelves held mementos of a childhood, two childhoods, two brothers, one now dead, the other servant to a memory of death.” (p. 38)
The story is sad and rugged and the writing matches that tone perfectly. It is not a fun read, but it is not easy to put down either, and the significance of the story comes through strongly, especially toward the end of the novel.
Underneath cottonwood trees, in the shadow of ever-present racism, with town bars, alcoholics, and open land all around, the Native Americans in this novel struggle with what to make of their lives and heritage. From a white Catholic priest who refuses to come onto the reservation or to bury Native Americans in their own cemetery, to a history of family starvation during winter because of the need to flee from the “Long Knives” (i.e., white soldiers), racism waits at every turn for the characters in this novel. But there is also strained in-group solidarity among the Native Americans themselves, evidenced by the tendency to distrust and even turn on each other.
“You must understand how people think in desperate times.” (p. 154)
“So she sat in the rocker and plotted ways to kill the girl who was thought to be my wife … Though almost a century old, almost blind and certainly toothless, she wanted to murder the girl, to avenge those many sins committed by generations of Crees.” (pp. 33-34)
At the core of the novel, which is set in the mid-20th century on (and near; e.g., in nearby towns) a reservation in Montana, is the theme of loss among Native Americans—the loss of loved ones, the loss of identity, the loss of felt purpose, the loss of an understanding of one’s heritage and genealogy. Promising careers are lost to racism. Family members are lost to drink, to the cold, and to accidents.
“Its shelves held mementos of a childhood, two childhoods, two brothers, one now dead, the other servant to a memory of death.” (p. 38)
The story is sad and rugged and the writing matches that tone perfectly. It is not a fun read, but it is not easy to put down either, and the significance of the story comes through strongly, especially toward the end of the novel.
August 12, 2022
A short while ago I received a newsletter from Louise Erdrich, a favorite of mine, in which she proposed that a long overdue Pulitzer Prize be awarded to one of her favorite writers, James Welch. This introduced me to Welch, this being the first of his books I've read, and this edition has the benefit of an introduction by Ms. Erdrich and beautifully lays out the reasons he deserves recognition for this, his debut novel. It is always important to follow a favorite writer's inspiration and have further insight into why their work resonates so strongly for you.
June 15, 2010
The dialogue is great; the descriptive writing a little more uneven, sometimes slipping into that dreaded vein known as "Bad Hemingway." (Something along these lines: The mountains were green. It was cold. I was fourteen then. The mountains were green and cold and we felt good.)
The story is slack, largely without tension or stakes, though a sense of hurt and emotional damage pervades it, lending some weight to the proceedings. I didn't mind the meandering plot, because individual scenes were handled so well. It didn't really feel like a novel, though, more like a 177 page short story. It has an impact at the end, but I'm not sure if it is as much as the author wanted.
The story is slack, largely without tension or stakes, though a sense of hurt and emotional damage pervades it, lending some weight to the proceedings. I didn't mind the meandering plot, because individual scenes were handled so well. It didn't really feel like a novel, though, more like a 177 page short story. It has an impact at the end, but I'm not sure if it is as much as the author wanted.
December 13, 2009
It was pure serendipity. I had never heard of James Welch, the Blackfoot/Gros Ventre who was one of the figures of the 1970s Montana literary renaissance (which I had also never heard of). I had read several books by Sherman Alexie, another Native American writer. I would have to say that Welch's Winter in the Blood hit me at such a keen angle that I felt my bones ache as I read it.
Welch gives us chains of simple declarative sentences that never pall, because suddenly he is off somewhere else; and you have to backtrack to get your bearings. Here he describes his deceased father, First Raise:
"The toolbox had held my father's tools and it was said in those days that he could fix anything made of iron. He overhauled machinery in the fall. It was said that when the leaves turned, First Raise's yard was full of iron; when they fell, the yard was full of leaves. He drank with the white men of Dodson. Not a quiet man, he told them stories and made them laugh. He charged them plenty for fixing their machines. Twenty dollars to kick a baler awake -- one dollar for the kick and nineteen for knowing where to kick. He made them laugh until the thirty below morning ten years ago we found him sleeping in the borrow pit across from Earthboy's place."
Later in the book, he describes a blind Blackfoot named Yellow Calf, whom he remembers his father First Raise taking to visit many years ago:
"But now, something else, his distance, made it all right to study his face, to see for the first time the black dots on his temples and the bridge of his nose, the ear lobes which sagged on either side of his head, and the bristles which grew on the edges of his jaw.... But it was his eyes, narrow beneath the loose skin of his lids, deep behind his cheekbones, which made one realize the old man's distance was permanent. It was behind those misty white eyes that gave off no light that he lives, a world as clean as the rustling willows, the bark of a fox or the odor of musk during mating season." [Italics mine:]
This is big sky country, and the sky here is immense. Behind its proscenium, vast movements of clouds and an occasional eldritch greyness play their parts. The Indians interact with one another with an emotional nakedness that seems odd to us. They also interact with whites, occasionally sleeping with their women, but there is no real connection made. It is like the Catholic priest who is the friend of the narrator's mother. He is friendly, but won't step onto the Reservation to attend the hero's grandmother's funeral.
I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see the world through different eyes.
Welch gives us chains of simple declarative sentences that never pall, because suddenly he is off somewhere else; and you have to backtrack to get your bearings. Here he describes his deceased father, First Raise:
"The toolbox had held my father's tools and it was said in those days that he could fix anything made of iron. He overhauled machinery in the fall. It was said that when the leaves turned, First Raise's yard was full of iron; when they fell, the yard was full of leaves. He drank with the white men of Dodson. Not a quiet man, he told them stories and made them laugh. He charged them plenty for fixing their machines. Twenty dollars to kick a baler awake -- one dollar for the kick and nineteen for knowing where to kick. He made them laugh until the thirty below morning ten years ago we found him sleeping in the borrow pit across from Earthboy's place."
Later in the book, he describes a blind Blackfoot named Yellow Calf, whom he remembers his father First Raise taking to visit many years ago:
"But now, something else, his distance, made it all right to study his face, to see for the first time the black dots on his temples and the bridge of his nose, the ear lobes which sagged on either side of his head, and the bristles which grew on the edges of his jaw.... But it was his eyes, narrow beneath the loose skin of his lids, deep behind his cheekbones, which made one realize the old man's distance was permanent. It was behind those misty white eyes that gave off no light that he lives, a world as clean as the rustling willows, the bark of a fox or the odor of musk during mating season." [Italics mine:]
This is big sky country, and the sky here is immense. Behind its proscenium, vast movements of clouds and an occasional eldritch greyness play their parts. The Indians interact with one another with an emotional nakedness that seems odd to us. They also interact with whites, occasionally sleeping with their women, but there is no real connection made. It is like the Catholic priest who is the friend of the narrator's mother. He is friendly, but won't step onto the Reservation to attend the hero's grandmother's funeral.
I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see the world through different eyes.
April 18, 2012
James Welch is probably Montana's foremost Native American writer, and this wonderful novella is evidence of considerable talent. Published 30 years ago (1974), it takes place in the shadow that was cast by the nation's approaching bicentennial. While neither bitter nor angry, it manages anyway to portray a country that has little to show for itself but "greed and stupidity." The values it embraces are finally those available to every American, native or otherwise - compassion and respect for life and the living.
The story concerns a few days in the life of a 32-year-old man, descendant of Indians and living in two worlds, his mother's home on the reservation and the dreary bars and hotels of nearby Havre and Malta, Montana. His days and nights blending together in an alcoholic haze, he meets a deranged white man, picks up women and gets punched in the nose. Meanwhile, he is haunted by a past that includes the death of an older brother and an injury to his knee that multiple operations have not remedied. Out of these unpromising circumstances, Welch finds the beginnings of a kind of personal salvation. By reaching back through the memory of a blind old man's act of charity, he restores the younger man's vision of himself.
Among the ranks of modern Native American writers, such as Louise Erdrich, Welch opens up a world for non-Indian readers that goes well beyond the usual stereotypes. His Indians are strikingly individual, absorbed in the everyday, motivated as much by self-interest and cock-eyed notions as their white counterparts. In Welch's hands, a conversation among five of them can be as comic and absurd as Ionesco. Meanwhile, the Native American past is there to ground a person with a sense of purpose and identity. For all its sorrows, Welch's story is finally a joy to read.
The story concerns a few days in the life of a 32-year-old man, descendant of Indians and living in two worlds, his mother's home on the reservation and the dreary bars and hotels of nearby Havre and Malta, Montana. His days and nights blending together in an alcoholic haze, he meets a deranged white man, picks up women and gets punched in the nose. Meanwhile, he is haunted by a past that includes the death of an older brother and an injury to his knee that multiple operations have not remedied. Out of these unpromising circumstances, Welch finds the beginnings of a kind of personal salvation. By reaching back through the memory of a blind old man's act of charity, he restores the younger man's vision of himself.
Among the ranks of modern Native American writers, such as Louise Erdrich, Welch opens up a world for non-Indian readers that goes well beyond the usual stereotypes. His Indians are strikingly individual, absorbed in the everyday, motivated as much by self-interest and cock-eyed notions as their white counterparts. In Welch's hands, a conversation among five of them can be as comic and absurd as Ionesco. Meanwhile, the Native American past is there to ground a person with a sense of purpose and identity. For all its sorrows, Welch's story is finally a joy to read.
November 13, 2025
No need to reiterate my love for nature/agrarian fiction rendered lean, raw, often-bloodied, and laid down straight. Neat, just a glass. I'm defenseless against it as it evokes my childhood, or significant portions thereof, in as close to a febrile tactility as literature of any kind can possibly accomplish. It's the pleasure (and, yes, the pain) of seeing a one-time self when the world was green and still radiant in its generation.
This is as stellar a specimen of its type as any I know; a Native American on a drunk that spins into a bender that, over time, takes the shape of a life. And that about sums that up, should you have ever traveled in such ditches that don't even afford a view of the road's wide, mean middle.
This is as stellar a specimen of its type as any I know; a Native American on a drunk that spins into a bender that, over time, takes the shape of a life. And that about sums that up, should you have ever traveled in such ditches that don't even afford a view of the road's wide, mean middle.
February 8, 2019
Read this many, many years ago but hung on to my copy. It is a brilliant novel. Moving, often desperate and real.
March 26, 2022
This short 1970s book is part bar-fly story (think Buckowski’s dirty realism) part family saga.
Home life on the Montana reservation is stifling, so Raymond escapes to the surrounding towns, where everyone and everything seems dysfunctional. Raymond can be hard to stomach. He is so numb, he barely has feelings for anyone and stumbles from one drunken misadventure to the next. When he returns home to the ranch, the story opens up and breathes again. The best parts of the book are boyhood memories, working on the ranch, and family stories. But you have to absorb a lot of hangovers and bitterness to get there. Luckily Welch included some silly humor to help us through those times.
Winter in the Blood is difficult, parts are unpleasant, so many mixed and confusing emotions. But the characters are so well depicted. I can lock eyes with each one, even those quickly passing through. Welch’s writing is striking.
If you’re a sensitive reader, this may not be for you. The list of triggers would be long. My biggest challenge was the misogyny and suffering of children and animals.
Home life on the Montana reservation is stifling, so Raymond escapes to the surrounding towns, where everyone and everything seems dysfunctional. Raymond can be hard to stomach. He is so numb, he barely has feelings for anyone and stumbles from one drunken misadventure to the next. When he returns home to the ranch, the story opens up and breathes again. The best parts of the book are boyhood memories, working on the ranch, and family stories. But you have to absorb a lot of hangovers and bitterness to get there. Luckily Welch included some silly humor to help us through those times.
Winter in the Blood is difficult, parts are unpleasant, so many mixed and confusing emotions. But the characters are so well depicted. I can lock eyes with each one, even those quickly passing through. Welch’s writing is striking.
If you’re a sensitive reader, this may not be for you. The list of triggers would be long. My biggest challenge was the misogyny and suffering of children and animals.
December 8, 2022
National American Indian Heritage Month 2020 Read #2 🍂
I wish I liked this book more. Between the lusterless narration and the confusing plot (I was never really sure what exactly the story was supposed to be about), I found it really hard to enjoy reading this.
There were a few scenes here and there that held my interest, but for the most part, it was quite a drag. I feel like I would have appreciated the symbols and motifs more had I been in an English class. On my own, they went over my head.
It's a shame I can't rate this higher because this novel is supposed to be a literary masterpiece.
I wish I liked this book more. Between the lusterless narration and the confusing plot (I was never really sure what exactly the story was supposed to be about), I found it really hard to enjoy reading this.
There were a few scenes here and there that held my interest, but for the most part, it was quite a drag. I feel like I would have appreciated the symbols and motifs more had I been in an English class. On my own, they went over my head.
It's a shame I can't rate this higher because this novel is supposed to be a literary masterpiece.
February 22, 2010
This book taught me to stop looking for the meaning in the book--it is only possible to comprehend this book when you stop reading into it and let it begin talking to you.
April 27, 2016
This is an essential book for anyone with even the slightest curiosity about what exactly it means to be Native American in America. Which essentially is me saying that everyone should read this book.
I can't really tell you much of what happens in this book. Not because the events aren't worth recounting or because I cannot remember them, but more like the fact that this isn't a book much interested in plot. The best way to call the tone of this book is "chilled" in many senses of the term. On the one hand, it's essentially a hangout book, where you spend time with an assorted group of interesting characters, all of whom are worth learning about. However, it's also a work that is heartbreakingly sad. Not depressing, or miserable, but sad. Welch's prose is incredibly immersive, the kind that you can slip through, and at the same time very subtle. Nothing is overwrought here. Everything is what it is, but described in such a way the only thing you can really feel is a crushing sadness, just like our nameless protagonist.
I haven't even scratched the surface here, but suffice to say every single one of you who reads this review should read this book. It'll fly by. It's profound in a way I can't express, at least without the worry that its spell will be broken. I will be haunted by this novel for quite some time.
I can't really tell you much of what happens in this book. Not because the events aren't worth recounting or because I cannot remember them, but more like the fact that this isn't a book much interested in plot. The best way to call the tone of this book is "chilled" in many senses of the term. On the one hand, it's essentially a hangout book, where you spend time with an assorted group of interesting characters, all of whom are worth learning about. However, it's also a work that is heartbreakingly sad. Not depressing, or miserable, but sad. Welch's prose is incredibly immersive, the kind that you can slip through, and at the same time very subtle. Nothing is overwrought here. Everything is what it is, but described in such a way the only thing you can really feel is a crushing sadness, just like our nameless protagonist.
I haven't even scratched the surface here, but suffice to say every single one of you who reads this review should read this book. It'll fly by. It's profound in a way I can't express, at least without the worry that its spell will be broken. I will be haunted by this novel for quite some time.
October 12, 2011
Not my usual genre, I thought as I began reading, wondering if I would continue. It seemed like a noir western, big lonesome dangerous country and smoky dive bars in very small towns - presented in language and dialogue so spare it almost read like a script. But then . . . it began to get hold of me, its grip growing tighter as the characters took on substance and shape and the mysteries began to grow. The occasional patches of description were gripping and gorgeous and perfect in the context of this place (both setting and book) where words weren't wasted on what could just as well be understood - if not immediately, then eventually. By the time I finished, I realized I'd just read a classic - one I had somehow missed up until now. The writer of this small, under-200-pages book had made a whole, poignant, profound and very honest world without inserting his own cleverness or taking unnecessary side trips. I never re-read novels. But this one I very well might, just to be there again and pick up anything I might have missed.
February 15, 2023
The best book about Montana racism and the deep impact on society. Alcohol use does not happen unless there is long lasting pain. This book is lovely in the saddest and most profound ways.
June 29, 2023
gonna be honest i don’t remember anything after reading this
March 1, 2010
Winter in the Blood appealed to me in the first few paragraphs, because the setting is one with which I'm very familiar. The bleak panorama that is north central Montana is almost a supplementary character in Welch's novel. But this sense of place almost instantly gave way to a disconnect that nonetheless was not without charm. While reading Welch's novel, I couldn't decide if it would change how I read the novel if the central character and I had not shared a common locality. The removal of almost four decades hasn't changed the landscape much, but the detachment from the past, and the distance between people and the land has grown with the passing of a generation. That connection seems to be what the central character strives for, and it's something that proves ever more elusive to the reader. A bittersweet read, and highly recommended.
January 14, 2024
Considered a founding text in the Native American Renaissance, James Welch’s 1974 debut novel (he was already a poet) received a 2021 Penguin Classics reissue with new remarks from Joy Harjo and Louise Erdrich giving it context. The unnamed narrator is a 32 year old member of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana. While his mother owns a successful ranch on the reservation, it’s fair to say he is somewhat lost and weighed down with grief, personal but also, surely, historical. Welch explores this grief with a taut poetic prose that is at turns realist and slightly surreal, grim and humorous, in a series of structured scenes over a short period of time that lead to new understanding.
In one such scene, the narrator visits a native elder, now blind, who lives alone in a crude cabin on the grassland. The elder claims he does not feel alone as he has the animals to talk to. Mockingly asked if the deer talk to him about the weather, he dismisses the jibe, but replies that the deer are not happy. The conversation continues:
One thing I think I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that this earth is always cockeyed. It’s always a bad time. People are always seeing the end. That’s not wrong; the world as we know it does and always will end, though it’s also only a part of our story here and should not exclude awareness of the rest of that story. I think from reading this book that Welch would agree. Erdrich writes in her introduction, “I think it annoyed Welch that this book was called bleak. That world of bones and wind may be stark but it is filled with life, and life is stories.” Life, stories, spirit: these things endure and always will.
In one such scene, the narrator visits a native elder, now blind, who lives alone in a crude cabin on the grassland. The elder claims he does not feel alone as he has the animals to talk to. Mockingly asked if the deer talk to him about the weather, he dismisses the jibe, but replies that the deer are not happy. The conversation continues:
“Not happy? But surely to a deer one year is as good as the next. How do you mean?”
“They are not happy with the way things are. They know what a bad time it is. They can tell by the moon when the world is cockeyed.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“They understand the signs. This earth is cockeyed.”
One thing I think I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that this earth is always cockeyed. It’s always a bad time. People are always seeing the end. That’s not wrong; the world as we know it does and always will end, though it’s also only a part of our story here and should not exclude awareness of the rest of that story. I think from reading this book that Welch would agree. Erdrich writes in her introduction, “I think it annoyed Welch that this book was called bleak. That world of bones and wind may be stark but it is filled with life, and life is stories.” Life, stories, spirit: these things endure and always will.
January 16, 2025
"I had had enough of Havre, enough of town, of walking home, hung over, beaten up, or both. I had had enough of the people, the bars, the hotels, but mostly, I had had enough of myself. I wanted to lose myself, to ditch these clothes, to outrun this burning sun, to stand beneath the clouds and have my shadow erased, myself along with it."
In this harrowing and bitter novel - a classic in Native-American literature - we follow a nameless Blackfeet man struggling with his past, while trying to figure out where he will go in the future. As he searches a rowdy town for his some-what girlfriend, the man is haunted by the grief for his father and brother.
The writing was the strongest element. The main character's icy demeanor was contrasted with the poetic descriptions of the Midwest landscape. Wench also poignantly writes about the lingering pain of grief: not just losing people, but thanks to the oppression and erasure of indigenous heritage, also losing your traditions and community.
Without a sense of identity, it's no wonder the Blackfeet man wanders around without purpose, falling prey to fights, booze, and depression.
But the main character's emotional turmoil doesn't excuse his awful behaviour towards women. Except for his mother, the man treats every female character with disdain, and the two sex-scenes feature SA (he either thinks about r*pe or undertakes it). 2025 will not be the year I excuse such behavior with 'it fits the time' or 'his actions show the man's hopelessness'.
Winter in the Blood is not a pleasant story, and although I admire the poignant themes and striking writing, the main character's actions soured the book for me.
In this harrowing and bitter novel - a classic in Native-American literature - we follow a nameless Blackfeet man struggling with his past, while trying to figure out where he will go in the future. As he searches a rowdy town for his some-what girlfriend, the man is haunted by the grief for his father and brother.
The writing was the strongest element. The main character's icy demeanor was contrasted with the poetic descriptions of the Midwest landscape. Wench also poignantly writes about the lingering pain of grief: not just losing people, but thanks to the oppression and erasure of indigenous heritage, also losing your traditions and community.
Without a sense of identity, it's no wonder the Blackfeet man wanders around without purpose, falling prey to fights, booze, and depression.
But the main character's emotional turmoil doesn't excuse his awful behaviour towards women. Except for his mother, the man treats every female character with disdain, and the two sex-scenes feature SA (he either thinks about r*pe or undertakes it). 2025 will not be the year I excuse such behavior with 'it fits the time' or 'his actions show the man's hopelessness'.
Winter in the Blood is not a pleasant story, and although I admire the poignant themes and striking writing, the main character's actions soured the book for me.
September 27, 2022
I came upon this book in a list of perfect short novels in Louise Erdrich's The Sentence. It's pretty darn good. A Native American guy sets off, seeking a girlfriend who took his gun. This leads to various adventures in the world, some entirely probable and at least one farfetched (the white guy with the Buick). He is also at home for much of the book, working in the fields with his stepfather and attending to his grandmother. There is plenty of alcohol but not too many benders and life threatening behaviors. At one point our hero is sitting on a horse speaking with a couple in a car who are offering condolences for the death of his grandmother. The guy in the car says "Where are my manners?" and pops open a beer to offer to our hero. It's just funny.
I probably need to read it again to think more about the structure, but it seems such a realistic portrayal of life in this world. People work hard and have goals and have successes and make mistakes along the way. They have a real community. Of course not all is good, but not all is bad either. Just like anywhere else, although nothing is exactly like the little world described here.
I probably need to read it again to think more about the structure, but it seems such a realistic portrayal of life in this world. People work hard and have goals and have successes and make mistakes along the way. They have a real community. Of course not all is good, but not all is bad either. Just like anywhere else, although nothing is exactly like the little world described here.
January 13, 2025
A devastating and beautiful, compact, tight little hardboiled tragedy of a novel—immediately among my favorites. My edition has an introduction by Louise Erdrich and I’m fairly haunted by the way she puts it:
“To me, the absence of personal affect in the narrator is more about the modesty of his despair.”
In light of how deeply mournful this novel is that’s hard to stop thinking about.
The novel itself is so tightly crafted. There are innumerable small touches that end up carrying a lot of thematic water. The descriptions of the natural world and work are superb, and juxtapose some very fine, very hellish hardboiled city/town scenes that in turn revolve around a curious little plot that feels loose and breezily plotted until it isn’t. Winter in the Blood quietly swings for the fences.
“To me, the absence of personal affect in the narrator is more about the modesty of his despair.”
In light of how deeply mournful this novel is that’s hard to stop thinking about.
The novel itself is so tightly crafted. There are innumerable small touches that end up carrying a lot of thematic water. The descriptions of the natural world and work are superb, and juxtapose some very fine, very hellish hardboiled city/town scenes that in turn revolve around a curious little plot that feels loose and breezily plotted until it isn’t. Winter in the Blood quietly swings for the fences.
November 12, 2020
A beautifully written book that gives us a look into the Indigenous experience of stolen history in the United States.
March 25, 2024
Good to read something different. It wasn’t very much about the plot which left me bored for a lot of it cause I don’t really care to read pages and pages about a horse or a couple of odd moments where i was like oh? There were some good scenes though where the narrator unpacked his identity and family history. Probably would appreciate more on a reread down the line.
June 12, 2023
“I should go home, I thought, turn the key and drive home. It wasn’t the ideal place, that was sure, but it was the best choice.”
April 4, 2008
The nameless narrator of James Welch's Winter in the Blood suffers from a feeling of distance and separation from the people and experiences by which he is surrounded. He says at the start of the book, "I felt no hatred, no love, no guilt, no conscience, nothing but a distance that had grown through the years" (2). He continues, saying that this distance could be a result of the Montana landscape in which he lives: "The country had created a distance as deep as it was empty, and the people accepted and treated each other with distance. But the distance I felt came not from country or people; it came from within me. I was as distant from myself as a hawk from the moon" (2).
Over the course of the book, the narrator attempts to diminish this distance through sex and work, but the distance remains. In the end, after a few trips to nearby towns and cities in search of a woman that include bizarre and paranoid subplots, he returns home to find his grandmother dead, to make a new connection with an old, blind relative, and to begin to come to terms with the long ago deaths of his father and his brother. Even in this coming to terms with things, he feels the distance. But the distance is no longer so deadening: "Some people, I thought, will never know how pleasant it is to be distant in a clean rain, the driving rain of a summer storm. It's not like you'd expect, nothing like you'd expect" (172).
The style of this novel is itself distanced, dreamy, separate from the action--but also realistic and anchored solidly in concrete details. The landscape and people's appearances are recorded in minute detail, but those details have little larger meaning. The details are there because they are there. In these details, Welch shows us a series of portraits, still lifes, landscapes; he captures the look and feel of the narrator's surroundings; he gives the illusion of meaning and presence in the moment while simultaneously registering the narrator's detachment.
The novel is at times confusing because of this stylistic approach, however. Who is the man with the airplane tickets who enlists the narrator in his paranoid scheme? Who is the woman at the bar? How do these mysterious people figure into the narrator's life? Well, they don't, really. They come and go quickly precisely because they don't matter. The people who matter to the narrator are dead. Their presences are more real than the real people he meets in town. The one exception to this is the woman, Agnes, whom he goes to town to find. She's left him, but he still sees in her a possibility and he still finds himself thinking about how he will do things differently next time, how he will propose. She is more real to the narrator than the other still living people he interacts with, but she is absent from most of the narrative, and his attitude toward her is fundamentally ambivalent.
Winter in the Blood is a significant contribution to the canon of Native American literature. It is set on a Native American reservation and concerns a Native American protagonist and his family and community on the reservation, but it is not a political novel. It is a literary novel that is completely at home among broader traditions of American literature and is a good representative of the Native American literary renaissance of the 1970s because of its ease in escaping the category "Indian novel" while still dealing with realities of Native American life on the reservation and Native American history.
Over the course of the book, the narrator attempts to diminish this distance through sex and work, but the distance remains. In the end, after a few trips to nearby towns and cities in search of a woman that include bizarre and paranoid subplots, he returns home to find his grandmother dead, to make a new connection with an old, blind relative, and to begin to come to terms with the long ago deaths of his father and his brother. Even in this coming to terms with things, he feels the distance. But the distance is no longer so deadening: "Some people, I thought, will never know how pleasant it is to be distant in a clean rain, the driving rain of a summer storm. It's not like you'd expect, nothing like you'd expect" (172).
The style of this novel is itself distanced, dreamy, separate from the action--but also realistic and anchored solidly in concrete details. The landscape and people's appearances are recorded in minute detail, but those details have little larger meaning. The details are there because they are there. In these details, Welch shows us a series of portraits, still lifes, landscapes; he captures the look and feel of the narrator's surroundings; he gives the illusion of meaning and presence in the moment while simultaneously registering the narrator's detachment.
The novel is at times confusing because of this stylistic approach, however. Who is the man with the airplane tickets who enlists the narrator in his paranoid scheme? Who is the woman at the bar? How do these mysterious people figure into the narrator's life? Well, they don't, really. They come and go quickly precisely because they don't matter. The people who matter to the narrator are dead. Their presences are more real than the real people he meets in town. The one exception to this is the woman, Agnes, whom he goes to town to find. She's left him, but he still sees in her a possibility and he still finds himself thinking about how he will do things differently next time, how he will propose. She is more real to the narrator than the other still living people he interacts with, but she is absent from most of the narrative, and his attitude toward her is fundamentally ambivalent.
Winter in the Blood is a significant contribution to the canon of Native American literature. It is set on a Native American reservation and concerns a Native American protagonist and his family and community on the reservation, but it is not a political novel. It is a literary novel that is completely at home among broader traditions of American literature and is a good representative of the Native American literary renaissance of the 1970s because of its ease in escaping the category "Indian novel" while still dealing with realities of Native American life on the reservation and Native American history.
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