Winter in the Blood … is a novel in which the nameless protagonist's search for an authentic and meaningful sense of being in the world is structured around various distances. Distance is articulated in essentially three forms—physical, emotional, and aesthetic. The physical (including temporal) distance at which his family and others are held partly causes their emotional remoteness from or coolness toward the protagonist, and he temporarily loses sight of who he is. His emotional distance, in turn, makes him a wanderer, leading him to establish an even greater distance from these others in an accelerating process until the principal action of homecoming is torture. For most of the novel the protagonist is variously lost in a steadily increasing distance: he is directionless, beaten, absorbed, and uncomprehending. Paradoxically, only when he flees from himself and from the ignorant grasping of others and relives his painful winter memories does...