Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Katherine May, the author and first-person narrator, is the book’s protagonist who mediates the reader’s experiences of its themes. She is a former director of creative writing at Canterbury Christ Church University and has written two fiction books and two memoirs. Her first memoir, 2019’s The Electricity of Every Living Thing, describes her experiences of being diagnosed with autism at the age of 38. In her writing, she comes across as down-to-earth and humorous; however, she also exposes a love of escapist fantasy given her fascination with Nordic cultures and snowy fictional words.

Discussions of the winter season, literal and metaphorical, are filtered through May’s personal experience. The book’s narrative loosely follows the half-year in May’s life following her husband H.’s hospitalization on her September birthday, with some flashbacks to relevant experiences. May only draws upon statistics and other scholarly research if they are in direct dialogue with her observations and feelings. For example, she refers to A. Roger Ekirch’s discussion of the watching hour in the pre-industrial age and scientific studies about prolactin, in tandem with her own experience of the early morning as a time of intense creative flow.