Cold-Blooded

James Welch was the great American novelist you've most likely never heard of. Welch was born in 1940 in Montana to Native American parents and died too soon, in 2003. One would be hard pressed to find a more profoundly American modern fiction writer. The scope and drama of the West charge his prose -- as do its suffering, loneliness and deprivation, in particular, as these hard truths affect the recent Native American experience. You don't read James Welch for cut-rate uplift; none is offered. His masterful 1974 novel Winter in the Blood is about a man named Virgil First Raise and his odyssey to retrieve both the wife who's left him and his very identity. The book was adapted to the screen last year; see the film tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Moore Auditorium on Webster University's campus (470 East Lockwood Avenue; 314-968-7487 or www.webster.edu /filmseries). Admission is free.
Tue., July 29, 7:30 p.m., 2014