PAUL AUSTER'S CAREER WAS BORN WHEN HE PUBLISHED THE INVENTION OF SOLITUDE ABOUT HIS FATHER.
WINTER JOURNAL IS ABOUT HIS MOTHER.

In Winter Journal, Auster presents the abandonment of the family by his father from his mother's point of view: her struggle as a single mother; love found again late in life, a love that was short-lived; her troubled later years and, finally, her death - and the subsequent anxiety
attacks Auster suffered in the face of this loss. In Winter Journal Auster moves through the events of his life in a random series of memories grasped from the point of view of his life now: playing baseball as a teenager; participating in the anti-Vietnam demonstrations at Columbia University; almost killing his second wife and child in a car accident; falling in and out of love with his first wife.

At the climax of the book Auster experiences the epiphany which gives birth to The Invention of Solitude.

Auster's signature prose makes the events flow effortlessly from one to the other, with page-turning momentum.

"Paul Auster has been an unswerving voice no matter what form he chooses, no matter what tale he imagines and tells. A generous heart always. A style of the high wire always."Michael Ondaatje