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 her death.

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; seeking out prostitutes in Paris, almost killing his second wife and child in a car accident; falling in and out of live with his first wife.